Ghosts
by Rizzle
Summary: Five years after the end of Voldemort and Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy is out of Azkaban and is a shell of his former self. Hermione Granger is doing her best, but she has demons of her own to deal with.
1. Chapter 1

_his was written for Sage (everythursday), for the 3keys Community All Hallows Eve Fic Exchange. _

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**Request Details**

**Name and Group Username:** Uh, lol. Sage/everythursday...you decide which one I should go with. Group Username is, I suppose, TheWrongInsideU?  
**Ships:** D/Hr, B/D/Hr  
**Reading Ratings:** PG-13 to NC-17 ('Cause I'm a hornball, baby)  
**What do you want in your fic?:** Snark, a manipulating situation, toe-socks, a 'trip' (in any way you want to take that)  
**One specific All Hallow's Eve item that MUST be included!:** A haunted house  
**What don't you want in your fic?:** Rape, incest, character death, too much angst

_Jonathan's horse, 'Mirabilia'_. – The etymology of the word is Latin, and it loosely translates as 'miracle'.

* * *

**PART ONE**

**October 30th 1806**

It was storming outside. The wizard entered the Manor shortly before midnight. Locks were not an obstacle. Neither was the elderly butler who was awakened by the distressful cries from the dying horse in the stables. The wizard disposed of the old man quickly, stepping over his stooped, arthritic body as it lay across the front doorstep. He then proceeded to the servants' quarters at the back of the house.

First, the housekeeper. The older woman, her frilly, sleeping cap slightly askew, died in her sleep and was not afforded a glimpse of her killer. The younger maid had awakened, however, and her eyes were wide with terror when the wizard cast the Killing Curse. They both fell back into their beds, looking no different than when he had found them.

A large, green-eyed cat bounded into wizard's path once the he had shut the door to the servants' room. The animal obviously knew what he was about that evening and snarled at him in challenge.

Pity. He was terribly fond of cats. And so was Samhain, the Dark One for whom All Hallow's Eve had been named. The wizard was an ardent patron of Samhain, and his devotion had been rewarded with the heightening of his powers during that sacred time, each year.

He knew which room was _hers_. She was would pick the bedroom that opened to the rising sun and to the gardens that were so wild they bordered on being unfashionable. He knew this because she was a creature of summer and growing things. He loved that about her.

The wizard entered the bedroom. He did not require a charm to guarantee silence now, for this final and important act. Everyone else in the house was already dead. There would be no thwarting him. No rescue.

She lay asleep in the bed, his beautiful girl who had run away into the arms of another. The man who had stolen her from him was holding her as if she were a treat too soon to be taken away. The young couple was wrapped around each other, legs and arms entwined and her long, flaxen hair an insubstantial, but luxurious blanket covering them.

The wizard's jealousy and rage grew and grew until it filled the room with an invisible, groaning darkness that seemed to push the walls outwards. The husband's eyes snapped open. He was a man of action. The wizard knew that the man was not a pampered, soft, dandy, who started at shadows. If it was to be a fair fight for the girl's affections, the husband would win.

But it was not going to be a fair fight.

A flash of lightning illuminated the wizard's wand, his robes, and the otherworldly hatred in his eyes. The husband pushed his wife behind him just as the Killing Curse was spoken.

His beloved awakened, but she did not scream, beg or bargain. That was what he admired about her - more courage than most men he knew. She held the hand of her dead husband and then silently challenged the wizard to do the same to her.

It was past midnight now. All Hallow's Eve. The wizard's powers were keener than ever.

He had wondered what impact his love for the girl would have on Avada Kedavra. Would it even work? Would it be just the same?

The wizard's questions were answered in full when he finally lifted his wand and killed the girl.

She still died, the same as all the others, but the flash of green was the most brilliant the wizard had ever seen. It seemed to grow and burst through the walls, diffusing through the rest of the house.

He left the place exactly as it was, save for one item. The beautiful gold and diamond ring her husband had given her caught the wizard's eye. It represented all that had gone wrong in his failed courtship of the highborn, Muggle girl.

The wizard gently pried the ring from his beloved's pale hand, to serve as a reminder.

**

**October 2006**

Blaise was trying very hard not to murder his boss, but heaven help him, it was a _difficult_ task.

"Tell her that the past year has been mutually beneficial. You've gained a lot from the relationship. But with a confirmed union, you can see better and brighter things in your respective futures."

Draco Malfoy was having problems sitting down. It was the new office chairs, Blaise realised, feeling a little contrite. They were a modern leather and stainless steel design of Blaise's own choosing, that rested fashionably low to the ground. Not ideal for sitting in, if you happened to be carrying around a lame, right leg. Malfoy managed though, after a minute. The damaged leg was propped up on the coffee table and Blaise thoughtfully ignored the obvious signs of strain and white pain on Draco's face. His injured leg was taboo. You mentioned it at your own peril.

'Peril', incidentally, was Blaise's nickname for the cane that Draco used to walk with. His friend was deathly quick to swing the thing at offending individuals. More than one staff member at the office had learned that the hard way.

"I'm planning to propose, you twat, not launch a company merger. Can't you get your head out of business for one second?"

Blaise's pity dissolved in a fizzle of annoyance. "I work _fourteen_ hours a day for you, you tyrant. Business is what I know."

Draco waved a dismissive hand. "Just show me the bloody brochure."

Blaise handed it to him and watched as Draco studied the advert. Studied it and then stared up at his old school friend and new business partner with a bland look.

"We have to…_drive_ there?"

He might as well have said, 'give Hagrid a sponge bath'.

"In a car, yes."

"I don't know how to drive, Zabini," Draco pointed out.

Blaise's imagination was having the most splendid time. Draco, Last of the Malfoys, the product of ten generations of careful breeding and rampant snobbery, seated in the driver's seat of some dingy, dusty sedan. With a big, red, 'L' stuck on the rear. He would scowl at the hapless, bespectacled, balding, driving instructor, who would of course be immune to both slander and bribery. "You failed to stop at a stop sign," the man would say, to which a sneering Draco would respond with, "Cruciatus."

"How lucky for you, then, that Granger drives very well," Blaise said, when he had quit smiling from his daydream. He had no idea if she drove well or not, but he thought it a fair guess seeing as she was good at most things.

"I am not sitting in a sodding car for four hours."

"That's good, because it's a very scenic, two hour drive at the most."

Malfoy honestly didn't have anything to complain about. He had asked for a holiday and Blaise had delivered, organising every detail right down to the rental car. Muggle celebrities paid top dollar for these types of novelty holidays in old country manors, Draco was told. The car wasn't the problem. They were simply skirting around the fact that Draco could not fly a broom any more. Sometimes Blaise thought that that knowledge hurt him more than the actual maiming of his leg.

Proud people always had a lot farther to fall. So far, in fact, that some didn't make it back up.

Five years since Potter's death and people still pulled their children away whenever Draco approached. He still received death threats every week. If a Diagon Alley merchant refused to serve him, Draco would simply tell you that he didn't really care because he was used to it. The angry, indignant fire in his eyes had burnt down to a few smouldering embers that would spark to life only in the presence of the one thing that recommended Draco to living – Hermione Granger.

Saying that it was an unusual pairing was an understatement.

Suffice to say that certain persons known to both parties had been so stunned to receive news of the relationship that they had instantly suspected foul play. Accordingly, Granger had eventually consented to being examined for any trace of a love potion and the drinking water at the Ministry had been sent to a lab for analysis.

Blaise thought falling in love was about as practical as a third arse cheek, but then he hadn't been the one to go through what Draco had. The Zabinis were merchants, not crusaders and had wisely remained neutral during the war.

Like Switzerland, Blaise liked to say, only better dressed.

Suffering changed a person. The proof was sitting calmly, albeit uncomfortably, in a chair in front of him.

Draco may have lost his title and his entire inheritance, but he was still indecently well off thanks to a few clever investments made following a four year sentence in Azkaban. Blaise had been hired to manage these investments and made his own tidy profit.

It was a splendid arrangement.

Blaise watched as Draco picked an imaginary piece of lint from his chocolate-coloured trousers while muttering something about the trip.

"What it is now?" Blaise asked.

"If I suggest a trip, she's going to know I'm intending to do something…out of the ordinary. I don't even remember her birthday."

"Aren't you the catch of the season," Blaise remarked dryly. "Not my problem what you tell her. Lie to her. Say it's a research trip."

"What kind of dark arts defence research would involve staying at a country manor for a week?"

"Make something up. You're good at that." Neutral he may be, but never let it be said that Blaise was not a Slytherin, through and through.

Draco was quiet for a long while. "Mulberry House, eh? Sounds like one of those places they send Muggle old people to when they start wetting their beds. Why isn't there a picture, Zabini?"

Blaise held on to his patience. "You want a picture, I'll give you one. Rolling, green hills, ponds, a lake with a boat house, ten bedrooms, stables, miles and miles of kitchen bench to facilitate late night, ice-cream binges and-or sex, and an staff that will look after your every need. I'll have you know I spent two weeks looking for suitable accommodation for you. That place comes with the highest recommendations. It's the most private thing I could find on short notice. No pesky reporters hounding you. Honestly, I know you pay me well, but I can't fathom why I put up with all this ungratefulness."

Draco might have leered, or smiled. Only he didn't do these things anymore. His wit, however, was very much intact. "Because of your mad lust for me, of course."

Blaise responded with a smile, slow and sleet-melting. "As I recall, that lust has been satisfied."

Miraculously, after all he had been through, even after Azkaban, Draco still had it in him to blush. "That was a very long time ago," he said, softly.

To lighten the mood, Blaise added. "Yes. I was off my face at that party. It was a toss up between you or Parkinson. Thank goodness I worked out what my intense fascination with Quabble's _'Men of Quidditch Calender_' was all about. Pansy would have traumatised me for life."

Draco pushed himself off the chair with the aid of his brass-handled cane, and got to his feet. He put the brochure into the pocket of the soft, caramel-coloured jacket he was wearing. "What am I doing, Zabini? I'm the most reviled man in Wizarding Britain. Of course she's going to say _no_."

"Severus Snape is the most reviled man in Wizarding Britain," Blaise corrected. "You're number two, but only because you're better looking."

"Thank you. I feel so much better now."

"Have you picked out a ring?" Blaise steered the conversation back to the purpose of the trip. "Or do I have to do that as well?"

"I'm not completely inept," Draco snapped. "He pulled out a small, white leather box from his pocket and flicked it open.

Blaise whistled low. The ring was obviously an antique. That made sense. Draco was not one for sleek minimalism. It was a gold band, with a large, cushion cut, yellow diamond that seemed to tell you stories the longer you looked at it.

"Nice, Malfoy. Very, very nice. Where did you get it?"

"I'm still welcomed at a few places."

Draco did not look overly thrilled with his selection and so Blaise was gentler when he next spoke. "You need to stop worrying so much about disappointing her. I think it's fair to say she's seen you at your worse. And then some."

"I don't think I need advice from someone who's only long lasting relationship was the thirty minutes he spent with the towel boy at the Cheeky Cherub."

That wrung a laugh out of Blaise. "Touché. You know, you could have done much worse than Granger. Your Azkaban interrogator might have been Longbottom. It would be a wild and woody love. Lots of nature hikes. You'll have allergies, but you'll endure them for your sweet Nevvie. I imagine you'd have to propose to him with a rare potted plant of some sort. You'd exchange trowels instead of rings in a greenhouse wedding overseen by Professor Sprout who will, of course, be godmother to all your green-thumbed brats. You'll have three children, Hibiscus, Valerian and Duckweed Longbottom."

Draco could only stare at him. "You know I can pay to have you killed?"

Blaise thumped him on the back good-naturedly as he walked his employer to the door. "As if you would," he scoffed. "Why pay for something you can probably do all by yourself?"

It was their routine.

The grandfather clock at the bottom of the curving, twin-branched staircase announced the arrival of Twelve Ante Meridiam to all the inhabitants of the house, of which there were five.

Well, seven in total, if you wanted to be pedantic about it.

Lady Sandhurst would make her graceful way to the front parlour, known more affectionately as the rose parlour, for it was completely done in dusky pinks and creams so thick as to be three dimensional. She arrived, as she did every evening, at precisely three minutes past midnight and was pleased to see that Stebbins had already wheeled in a little cart bearing Esther's grandmother's fine, bone china tea service. There was no tea in the teapot and the elegant trays were devoid of cakes or biscuits, but Esther liked to declare that it was the thought that counted.

Stebbins had been with them for a very long time, having served as Esther's family butler for two full generations. He had already been an old man when Esther was born. His eyesight was bad, his hearing was worse and he doddered. But only just. Still, Esther would have sooner replaced him as she would her beloved husband, Jonathan.

Who was _late_. Again. Esther sighed. She wouldn't have changed a hair on the man's head, but his tardiness really was legendary.

Stebbins set a dainty tea cup and saucer on the gilded, parlour table and regarded the mistress he loved like a daughter. Lord Sandhurst was _always_ late. Stebbins had never encountered a man with the ability to fill his day quite like the young Earl.

"Shall I fetch him for you, madam?" Stebbins asked politely.

"No need," Esther smiled, her violet eyes going unfocussed for a moment. "He comes now."

True enough, the parlour doors swung open with a flourish and a young man, no more than twenty-five, and certainly less than thirty, strode into the room. He was dressed in riding clothes and carried something out of the outdoors about his person. There was no light in the parlour, but he didn't need it to locate his wife and go to her. His light blue eyes were alight with love and the tiniest bit of mischief.

"Jonathan," she breathed, rising to her feet in a flutter of peach silk.

There was no longer a need for propriety at the House. There hadn't been for a very long time. And so Lord Sandhurst settled his pretty wife in his lap and put his face in her golden curls.

"Evening, Stebbins," came the slightly muffled greeting.

"Good evening, my lord." Stebbins bowed before making a discreet exit, leaving the couple to their privacy. He had been eager to have a word with Mrs. Badgerly, the housekeeper, about Ruth. The maid had taken a maggot to her head about changing the routine of her duties. A well-run estate depended on routine. Mrs. B would soon sort the girl out.

"Any luck?" Esther asked her husband. This also, was routine. Their search for Esther's engagement ring was never-ending.

"No," Jonathan replied. They were sad, but not for very long. Tomorrow was a new day and that meant new possibilities.

"Did you visit with Mirabilia this evening?" she asked, eyeing the bits of wet grass that still clung to his shiny Hessians.

The mischievous glint in his eyes became more pronounced. "I did. Are you jealous?"

"That horse hates me," she said, with a bit of a sniff.

Esther's long-standing disagreement with Jonathan's beautiful mount was a constant source of amusement to him. "She's partial to men," Jonathan informed, thinking what fun it was to tease his wife.

"She's partial to _you_."

"That's because I am the best of men," Lord Sandhurst answered cheerfully.

His loyal wife nodded. "Indeed you are."

Jonathan's eyes softened. "Have I told you I love you?"

"Not since yesterday, no."

"I love you, Esther."

"I know you do, but it is always good to hear."

"What you play for me tonight?" Jonathan asked. He indulgently tugged on the white ribbon that was wound through Esther's hair.

She looked surprised at the request, but this soon turned to pleasure. "Of course. What would you like to hear?"

Jonathan closed his eyes as he pondered his favourites. He felt something stirring that evening. Something was blowing their way. It would be All Hallow's Eve again in a few days and perhaps that explained why he had been so restless that only a diverting ride around the small estate had managed to calm his nerves.

He realised his wife was giving him a look of concern. He put her at ease immediately.

"Mozart, my love. You know which one."

Esther smiled. She went to the pianoforte, her fingers hovering over the keys for a moment. And then she brought them down into the first movement of Concerto N. 23, in all its melancholy elegance.

It was piece she had not played in over a century.

"Do you hear that?"

Draco had just thrown open the doors to the old house (after a bit of shoulder butting to get the hinges working again). Once it was done, he stepped in front of Hermione before she could walk inside. It was rude, but it was instinct. She was used to this and gave a small sigh, not of frustration, but of resignation.

There was a lot of that going on between them.

The fact was that they were in an unfamiliar place and people still hated him. That kind of knowledge tended to make a person a touch paranoid. Shadows and the unknown just meant more places for angry people to spring out at them from. And there were so very _many_ angry people. Even after five years. He may have been crippled, but Draco was more than capable with a wand in his hand.

Presently, Hermione stood on her toes and tried to peek over his shoulder. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight coming in through the doorway, illuminating the highly polished black and white marbled floor and a round, central table bearing an enormous vase of flowers. A three-tiered chandelier swung lightly directly above. The breeze outside blew crunchy, dried leaves past the threshold, and into the foyer.

"Hear what?" she asked. The question seemed to travel down the length and breadth of the empty house.

Draco frowned as he took a limping step to the door and wheeled their trunk into the house. "Don't worry. It's nothing."

That wasn't true. He had heard music. He was sure of it.

Esther and Jonathan were outside the front parlour, watching as the young couple carried their things into the foyer. Or at least, they were trying to. The light-haired young man, who was walking with the aid of a stick, had tilted a trunk on its attached wheels, only to be stopped by the young lady.

She pressed a hand against his arm and tried to take over the task. He would not let her. She frowned at him.

Esther might have swooned if she had retained the ability. She wasn't the fainting type, but nothing else made a dramatic statement quite like a good swoon. Instead, she held a hand to her mouth and gasped.

"I…I don't believe it. Visitors!"

Jonathan was gawking at the young woman's indecently snug trousers and Esther resisted the urge to swat at him with her fan.

"We haven't had visitors since…"

"Jonathan, my darling, we've _never_ had visitors."

"They _see_ the house?" he pondered, incredulously.

She nodded, her ringleted hair bobbing prettily. "Evidently."

The couple looked to be a few years older than Esther and perhaps the same age as Jonathan. They were obviously English, that was clear enough. However, this was where the similarities ended. The bickering had ceased and the man had relinquished the piece of luggage to his young lady.

With a resigned sigh, he stood by as she took over the task of bringing their additional two bags through the door and started up the steps. He looked surly and made no move to assist.

"He must be a Peer." Jonathan made that remark as he watched Draco fold his arms and watch Hermione struggle up the stairs with the two smaller pieces of luggage. "He has that look about him. Perhaps she is a maid?"

"She is no maid," Esther surmised. The pretty, dark-haired girl did not look the sort to receive orders. Indeed, she seemed to be the one giving them. One of the bags had not been fastened securely, and it split open at the top. A smaller, quilted bag tumbled out and over the banister.

"There goes Great Aunt Millie's vase…"

"I say! Be careful!" Jonathan started forward up the steps to Hermione the same time Draco dropped his cane and lunged to steady the vase. Jonathan ended up walking right through him.

Draco stopped, started and stared down at himself. He replaced the vase on its pedestal and then visibly shivered. For a split second, it felt like he had just been dunked into a vat of ice.

Hermione was looking down at him from the top of the staircase. "Draco, are you alright?"

He replied that he was.

"Odd name, that," Jonathan muttered. Esther elbowed him for his rudeness.

They both watched the young man's unusual grey gaze follow his lady up the stairs. He kept right on staring, even after she had disappeared from the steps and her footsteps could no longer be heard.

The look of longing on his face was as old as Eve.

"Oh, dear," said Esther. She turned to her husband, who had no trouble recognising the purposeful look in her eyes. "There can only be one purpose for their being here, Jonathan. I fear we have quite a bit of work to do."

Her husband wrapped his arms around her. His amazement was profound. "Can it really be? After all this time, do you suppose we shall finally lift this damnable curse?"

Jonathan loved Esther for a thousand different reasons. One of these reasons was her ability to be eternally optimistic. Even in death.

"We shall certainly do our best!"


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**

**Azkaban Island, June 2004**

Hermione waited, with clammy hands and a sore throat, for them to open the interrogation chamber. Her cold was taking forever to get better.

She shifted her weight from right foot to left foot. Her sensible, flat, black shoes were too tight. The last time she had worn them was during Harry's funeral service. She had put them away and had not looked at them again until that morning. They were still clean and very shiny, despite the fact that the sky had opened up and wept all through the short funeral service four years ago.

There was a hum at the door. She felt it in the floor, an intense vibration that meant the powerful wards had been taken down for a moment.

Large metal doors to Azkaban's newest wing pulled open. Hermione was directed to the fourth metal door on the right. She walked briskly into the room.

The prisoner sat in a chair, eyes downcast, shackled hands in his lap.

Draco Malfoy, unlikely saviour of them all because he was Harry's killer.

They had cut off his hair, for reasons Hermione could only guess at. It looked like someone had grabbed chucks of it and used a knife to saw off the fine, white-blond strands. She could see parts of his fair scalp through the mess. His face was a mishmash of blue, purple and stark, sickly white. Seamus had warned her that he had been severely roughed up that week because the last of the captured Death Eaters had finally been put to trial. There had been a taunting incident and Malfoy had allegedly thrown the first punch. The guards had obviously responded a tad overzealously.

Malfoy was wearing the same mustard-coloured robes all Azkaban prisoners wore. They were too big on his gaunt, wasted body. She could see his clavicles poking out prominently through the opening at his throat. You couldn't tell that his right leg was lame from just looking at him, but Hermione was certain it would show when he walked. The leg had nearly been severed at the knee, after all.

"I'm here to ask you a few questions before this case is permanently closed," Hermione informed him, in a hoarse voice. She wished she had some water. A satchel was unpacked and a stack of documents one hand high was laid onto the table. She was glad to have her voice back in time to do a final series of interviews with Malfoy before his eventual release. Even after four years, there were still gaping holes in the story of how Harry had died.

Veritaserum would have saved all of them a great deal of time, but unfortunately, Malfoy had built up immunity to it.

"We haven't got the full account yet of what happened, so it would be very good for you if you assist us."

The polite tactic didn't immediately work. He didn't reply, didn't look at her. She couldn't see his eyes, but she imagined that they were glassy.

"Malfoy?"

Had they done him serious injury? His face was bruised and swollen, but they were usually very careful about beating prisoners about the head. She leaned forward to peer more closely at him, frowning when she saw a very thin line of saliva slip from one corner of his slack mouth. It pooled on his thigh, turning the amber material a dark brown.

Furious at having wasted her valuable time that morning, Hermione spun out of her chair and stalked over to the two-way mirror where they were monitoring the interrogation. She made a fist and pounded once on the glass. It rippled like the surface of a dark pond.

"You drugged him! You drag me from my work to come here and waste my time interrogating a zombie! How the hell am I supposed to do my job if you bloody drugged him?" She imagined the robed figures on the other side muttering amongst themselves.

Disgusted, she turned back to the table. But Malfoy wasn't there. Startled, she looked around the room.

He came at her, a blur from the corner. His fingers clamped around her throat, slamming her body against the charmed glass as he squeezed. His shackles bit into the tender skin of her neck. The sound that came from his throat was inhuman. Part growl, part whine.

He didn't blink. Just stared. The emptiness in his eyes was so menacing that Hermione was momentarily transfixed. The need for air almost became secondary. She was held in thrall by his dead, silver stare, certain she had never seen anything quite so desolate in her entire life. It was like looking into limbo.

The guards piled into the room. One of them hit him in the ribs and when that had no effect, he hit Malfoy in the side of the neck. Still, the grip did not loosen. Hermione felt herself starting to black out and then heard Seamus Finnegan's booming voice, "Stupefy!"

She coughed and wheezed and massaged her throat as Seamus pulled her to her feet.

"Alright, Hermione?"

She nodded. _There goes my voice_, she thought.

Malfoy lay in the fetal position on the floor. His form and features were slack, but his eyes were open. They were vacant. One of his hands lay palm up, his fingers slightly curled. He twitched once, and then was still.

It was his twenty-fourth birthday.

**October, 2006**

So much for Zabini's prediction of a scenic three hour drive.

They had been lost for an hour before finally stumbling across the barely visible dirt track that led off from a barely visibly, dirt road. Several barely visible (and very lucky) cows later, they arrived at what they assumed to be Mulberry House. It was just after eight in the evening.

Hermione pried the map from Draco's stubborn hands and flicked her wand for light. "This has to be it."

"Looks to be it," Draco agreed.

There it sat. Mulberry House, or so the brochure proclaimed. Not exactly where it ought to have been, but Blaise's directions had been shite. Draco assured Hermione that this had always been the case, since their schooling days.

Also, they had been forced to drive in the evening, due to a mountain of last-minute forms that Draco had neglected to fill out prior to arranging their holiday. Due to the strict conditions of his probation, he was not yet permitted to leave the country or travel without due notice. He was allowed interstate excursions, but only after eighty-six separate forms had been signed, submitted, stamped and triplicated.

"I thought you were doing what you could to improve the bureaucracy," he had grumbled the whole time.

Hermione had been busy helping him fill out something called RFH67. "I am. It used to be _a hundred and twelve_ forms before."

It was all worth it, though. The hassle of the forms, Draco's moodiness in the weeks prior to him springing the surprise on her, the last minute leave she had wrangled from Scrimgeour. All of it.

Upon seeing the place, Hermione was absolutely charmed and even got a little misty-eyed at Draco's gruffness when she told him how splendid it all was. Mulberry House was gothic and moody-looking, while still managing to be very pretty.

"Like you," she had told Draco, to which he had snorted. He wasn't the best at receiving compliments.

"Zabini picked it, not I," he muttered, almost in defence.

The estate was not massive, but it was sprawling. Built in the Greco-Roman style, two massive columns flanked the wide, central entrance, separating one white wing from the other. The gardens were overgrown, but not yet brambly enough to thwart the ardent nature enthusiast. Over a partition hedge, Hermione could make out a brilliantly white gazebo in the spacious courtyards. There was also a lake with a little, escaped rowboat floating in the middle of the calm water.

The drive had been quite pleasant out of London, but then, driving away from the city was always pleasant. Draco had never before encountered a Muggle street directory and complained that there was no 'You Are Here' symbol to trace one's progress.

They stopped for gas. An amused Hermione stood by as Draco insisted on acquainting himself with the pump. He refilled without too much difficulty and then walked in to pay the attendant with the money Hermione had passed him through the window. She sat back in the seat with the radio turned on. There only seemed to be the one station.

'Superstition' came on, in line with the Halloween spirit.

Stevie Wonder was wrapping up the song when Draco returned with a bag of crisps, two cans of soft drinks and two ice-creams. The delight he took in demolishing the fruit-flavoured popsicle made for riveting viewing.

"I bought you one, too," he told her, misreading her intent look.

She knew she was staring, but couldn't help it. To think that a little over a year ago, his not eating had been the topic of discussion for an entire Azkaban committee.

"What?" he said, giving her a look. "I'm hungry. The only hot food they had in there was dog meat."

That snapped her out of her daydream. "They had _what_?"

Draco gave her an endearing, yeah-I-thought-that-was-gross-_too_, look. "Dog meat. I didn't see it, but there was a sign. A hot dog and a can of drink for five quid."

Oh. She smiled. "It's not dog meat, Draco. A hot dog is basically a sausage in a long bun."

"With no dog meat in it?" he clarified, still suspicious.

"Muggles don't eat their dogs. Well, not usually anyway."

"I might, if I had a dog. I'm famished. Let's stop for something," he suggested.

"It's too late to stop for dinner now. We should keep on," she replied, and took the car back onto the road.

From the corner of her eye, she saw his jaw tense. But he didn't say anything, merely turned his attention back to his ice cream, though now will less enthusiasm.

Honestly, Hermione didn't know why she had said that. She was hungry too, but part of her had been taking a gamble that Draco would insist on stopping for a meal.

As far as trends went, this one was particularly worrying.

"I'm going to kill him." Draco made this announcement after stalking out of yet another room and still failing to discover a flushing toilet. Only five more rooms to go and it wasn't looking good so far.

The house was in pristine condition, testament to the care and restoration skills of its managers. There were ten bedrooms, two of which were actually suites with smaller, adjoining rooms and attached water closets. Apparently, no expense had been spared to ensure that Mulberry House remained as authentic-looking as possible. There were a few innovations, though. There was a large bathing room done in colourful mosaics set into a split-level on the first floor. Hermione had fallen in love with it instantly.

"Fat lot of good a bath is without a toilet," Draco had added.

They picked the bedroom that faced the gardens. It was by far, the nicest. Hermione sat on the edge of the silk-draped, four poster bed and thumbed through the brochure Blaise has given Draco.

"It says here that the house affords visitors the total Regency, country experience. I'm guessing that explains the outdoor plumbing? Or God forbid, a chamber pot?" With trepidation, she glanced around the room to see if she could find one. Where did they keep chamber pots anyway? In the armoire? Under the bed?

Draco's look of mild horror was so amusing, Hermione had to turn around and fuss with the velvet ties of the blue and silver bed drapery to avoid laughing outright.

"Zabini is a dead man." Draco was emphatic.

"It's not so bad. Weren't you raised in the country?" It was a stupid question. Malfoy Manor had been a country estate, though apparently with modern plumbing. The thought of Lucius Malfoy stumbling outside in the dark, with a roll of toilet paper, needing to use the 'facilities', ought to have been knee-slappingly funny, except nothing about the sadistic bastard could ever be labelled amusing.

Draco pulled back the curtains. "I think I saw an outhouse behind the kitchens, though I'm wondering who could possibly be paid enough to maintain the thing."

The view outside was very nice indeed. Hermione hopped off the bed to stand beside him. He looked so disconcerted that she slipped her hand under his woollen jumper and stroked his back. He closed his eyes, enjoying the gentle caress, but as always, there was that slight stiffening of his body, which Hermione had grown to expect, and lately, to lament.

Of all the things that were unconventional and unusual about their relationship, this was the one thing that bothered her the most.

Draco did not like to be touched. Not even by her. He slept, ate and lived with her. But he had never touched her as a lover. It was still too soon, she kept telling herself. Part of Draco was still trapped in the limbo she had seen in his eyes two years ago. If she pressed too hard, he would break and if that happened, she didn't know what she would do.

It was getting more and more difficult to conceal her hurt each time he withdrew from her like she was unclean.

Draco sensed that she was upset, but he had apologised too many times to do so again without it meaning very little. He gently removed her hand from his person and then placed a dry kiss on her forehead, as if that would atone for their lack of a physical relationship.

"We should unpack," he said, quietly.

**Azkaban Island, July 2004.**

They told her she didn't have to go back if she didn't want to. Right. And Harry really didn't have to die if he didn't want to. They were hypocrites. All of them. She was one too. But she happened to be a hypocrite that never shied away from her job. She had a report to complete and by God, she was going to get it done one way or another.

Hermione put on her sensible, black shoes and returned to Azkaban the next month. The marks on her neck from Malfoy's attack had long gone, but the memory was still very fresh.

His hands were tied behind his back this time and his face was completely healed. There were the familiar cheekbones, the long, patrician nose, dark blonde brows and an expressive mouth that was currently turned down in a sneer. His hair was still atrocious, but it would grow out eventually.

"They gave you a sedative the last time, which, unfortunately, backfired," she explained. "Make this easier on you, Malfoy. It's likely you'll be released after the last trial is over. But you know how slow the system is. That could take an additional year, so why not make your final months at Azkaban more comfortable in the meantime, hmm?"

He was silent, but his eyes lifted. The coolness of his stare was expected, but it still made her skin prickle.

She added, "You know, it _will_ be noted on your probationary record if you refuse to cooperate with us."

"I asked to have a shower after your last visit." He said this so softly that Hermione thought it was her imagination at first. His voice was different to what she remembered, deeper.

She blinked at him. "Did you, now?"

"Because I touched you, you Mudblood cunt," he said casually.

This was also expected and much easier to ignore. "We have already established that you were under the guardianship of Severus Snape before Voldemort gave you the assignment to kill Harry. What we don't know is when you turned against your Master and _how_ exactly Harry planned it with you."

Silence.

"Malfoy, you may be looking forward to release, but you do realise you will never be able to show your face in Wizarding society again without being reviled. Help us with this last thing, and we will make your transition easier."

His response to this threat was to lean forward and spit in her face.

"You can take that reply back to Scrimgeour," he told her with smiling finality.

Suffice to say, Interrogation Attempt Number Two did not go so well either

**October 2006**

There was something very strange about Mulberry House.

Besides the lack of indoor plumbing, the staff was being terribly mysterious. It was a novelty holiday, Hermione reminded herself. Maybe attendants you never saw were just part of the experience.

They hadn't seen a soul since arriving and yet it seemed obvious that a small, but efficient crew had already set about making them feel very welcomed indeed. Hermione felt a bit uneasy about the fact that she had remained oblivious and asleep while someone had taken her clothes out of the wardrobe, ironed them and put them back in. She was usually a very light sleeper and she could have sworn she had locked the door before turning in.

It was a thousand different kinds of torture to sleep with Draco in the same bed, but Hermione figured that of she'd endured Cruciatus without lasting damage, then she could survive their platonic sleeping arrangement.

The first few weeks after his release from Azkaban, he had shunned the bed and had slept on the floor in the lounge room of Hermione's flat, accepting no more than a blanket.

Wizards neither offered nor partook in therapy. Their philosophy to trauma was simple. Get over it. She might have suggested Draco speak to a Muggle counsellor, but what could he possibly say? Not the truth, certainly. What could he say that wouldn't earn him a strong recommendation to check himself into a psychiatric facility at his earliest convenience?

For an entire month after his release, Hermione wondered if she had lost her heart to a man who happened to be gay. Along with being everything else that he was. But then occasionally, she would catch him looking at her with such intensity, such heat and longing that her breath would catch in her throat.

No, not gay. That was clearly _not_ the problem.

When he finally did sleep in her bed, she'd wiggle up against him, either experimentally or unintentionally. Half-awake, he would pull her close and his hands would wander and she would hold her breath. Inevitably however, he would awaken, go completely rigid and then roll to the other side.

It was very difficult not taking all of this personally. He could protest all he liked about how it had nothing to do with her, but the proof lay in the pudding, didn't it? Whatever that meant. She wasn't a raving beauty and this had never mattered to her before.

A year together had made certain problems easier to cope with, even if it was for lack of being mentioned.

They awoke at a quarter past ten the next morning, which was unheard of for either of them. One look at Draco's endearingly groggy expression convinced her that the trip was exactly what he needed.

Besides being soundly shagged, that was.

Half dressed, they sleepily ventured downstairs in search of breakfast. The enticing aroma coming from the dining room was apparently it.

Hermione blinked in wonder at the rosewood sideboard that was groaning under covered silver tureens. She deigned to peek under one, and then another. There were scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon, kippered salmon, potatoes, kidneys, roasted tomatoes and a mountain of toast which was miraculously still fresh. In addition, Hermione had never seen so much silver flatware in her life.

A mystery was only interesting on a full stomach, apparently. Draco, who had at one time been used to such breakfast banquets, systematically piled his plate and was already seated at the table. He laid a fine, starched napkin across his lap and began to tuck in with delicate greed.

Where was the cook? How had they managed to lay out a full breakfast spread without making so much as a squeak? Surely that much cutlery alone, being moved from one spot to another, would have made _some_ noise.

"Maybe they do room service too," Hermione said.

She took her seat opposite Draco and plucked a few strawberries from the enormous crystal fruit bowl in front of her. Feeling rebellious amidst such well-bred decadence, Hermione propped her feet up on another gilded chair and sat back to suck on the narrow end of a strawberry. Her rainbow coloured, toe-socked feet wiggled absently in time to her happy humming.

When the first fat strawberry was eaten, and Hermione commenced licking her pink, sticky-sweet fingers, she chanced to glance across the table and nearly fell off her chair.

How in the name of all that was holy could he possibly look at her the way he was now, and _not_ want her? If looks caused orgasms, Hermione was sure she'd be passed out on the floor. Draco's hand seemed to be paused in the act of feeding himself toast. She suddenly felt self-conscious and decided to sit up properly in her chair.

"This is really something," she opinioned, when the silence became too heavy. No more strawberries. She picked a nice, safe grape and popped that into her mouth instead.

"Yes," he replied, turning his attention back to buttering more toast.

"I suppose you had meals like this all the time at the Manor?"

He set his butter knife down with a clang.

She had made a faux paux, forgetting that they were not to talk about Malfoy Manor, or his family. So much for getting it all out in the open. Hermione wondered what manner of pain it caused him to talk about that now, after so long. There was so much she still wanted to ask him, even if he insisted that knowing probably wouldn't have done either of them any good.

To distract herself from her unhappy thoughts, she picked up the brochure they had carried downstairs and opened it again. "Says here that meals will be served at the following times in the dining hall. Who eats dinner at four-thirty?"

"Country hours," Draco replied, but only after having swallowed the small mouthful of toast he had been eating. What she would give to see him make a right mess of himself as he ate spaghetti bolognaise with a fork and no spoon, or a pub pie covered in ketchup, or chicken wings. No one could eat chicken wings with a knife and fork.

The again, Draco probably could.

Mrs. Badgerly, the cook and head housekeeper, was looking very pleased with herself. Esther couldn't fault her. It had been a while since Mrs. B had prepared a banquet of any kind, and while all the food stores at the house had been magically preserved, along with the rest of the estate, none of them knew for certain if any of it was still edible. It wasn't like they could taste it for themselves to check.

"Ate everything on his plate and then went back for two more helpings," she beamed at her mistress.

Esther clasped her hands together. "Excellent. I forget what hearty appetites young men have. Is Ruth seeing to their room?"

"She's is, milady. Pressed the young woman's clothing early this morning," Mrs. B looked hesitant for a moment, before continuing. "I couldn't help but notice…"

"Yes?"

"The lass isn't wearing a ring." This revelation was whispered with an appreciation for potentially scandalous gossip. Some traits from mortal life were permanent.

Esther grinned. "That's where we may be able to assist. And in turn, they will help us." She sounded very confident.

"Do you suppose he's brought her here to propose, milady?"

"I'm counting on it."

"There's something else too."

"Speak your mind, Mrs. Badgerly."

"They're not intimate-like."

"Intimate-like?" Esther repeated, confused.

Mrs. B sighed. For all that Lady Esther was now into her fourth century, she was still an innocent in many ways.

"They may be sleeping together, but they're not _sleeping_ together, if you get my meaning, milady."

Esther's eyes widened. "Truly?" This was a surprise. There had been enough slow burning sexual heat between the couple to strip the wallpaper in the second parlour.

"There are some troubles there, to be sure," Mrs. B speculated.

"Caution, I suppose. On both their parts?"

Mrs. B shook her head. "It's more than that."

Further conference was interrupted when Lord Sandhurst burst into the kitchen. He looked very handsome and very furious in snug, dark breeches, an azure silk waistcoat and a white batiste shirt roguishly opened at the neck.

"Jonathan?" Esther asked, concerned.

"Good morning, Mrs. Badgerly," he said, absently.

Mrs. B curtsied.

"I'm afraid we may have a problem," Jonathan told his wife. He held up Draco's wand with a pained expression. "I found _this_ amongst their things."

Mrs. B flinched when she saw it. Esther, meanwhile, was stunned, but this soon gave way to a speculative expression and then, to annoyance.

"Jonathan, that is unacceptable! I will not have you riffling through their belongings."

He scowled for a second, and Esther was reminded of their early days together. It hadn't always been soft looks and softer words between them. He had been quite the tyrant before their marriage. "You miss the point, my love."

"Does it matter? It took one of _them_ to do this, perhaps it will also take witchcraft to undo it. You will return that at once, won't you? I daresay they will notice its absence."

"I'll take it up, milord," Mrs. Badgerly volunteered. "Was just about to check on our Ruthie's progress. She was in a dither about her duties, what with it being so long since she had any."

The doors to the kitchen opened, then. It was Draco.

He walked in with an empty coffee cup, wearing a long, slate-grey robe, unbelted, and a matching pair of pyjama bottoms that were slung so slow they rested two inches below his hip bones. Jonathan scowled harder and slapped a hand over his wife's eyes. This didn't really do much, as she could see through his hand anyway.

For her husband's sake however, she pretended to avert her gaze.

Mrs. Badgerly had no such qualms. She put her hand on her broad hip and snorted with open approval. "Still could use a little fattening up," she muttered, to which Esther said, "Mrs. B!"

Draco paused in the act of pouring a fresh cup of tea from the pot he had discovered on the kitchen bench. His light eyes darted to the far corner, certain he had heard whispering. The short hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

This was the same odd sensation he had encountered when they first arrived. Aside from the addition of a full, steaming pot of tea, the kitchen looked exactly as he remembered from the brief inspection he had made the night before. There was a great deal of uncluttered bench top (as Blaise had salaciously promised), two enormous enamel basins, several storage cupboards, a long wood fire stove and oven, an industrial size butcher's block, a fireplace with a spit and an informal, rustic dining table with six matching chairs. He could smell recently cooked food.

"Hello?" he said, feeling a little foolish.

Perhaps one of the staff was still hovering about somewhere. He put down the coffee pot, walked over to the large pantry and opened it, not sure what he was expecting to find inside. It was well stocked. There were dried herbs, small muslin sacks filled with spices, canisters and jars of preserves and pickles and several wheels of cheese. There was also a great quantity of smoked meat and fish.

There wasn't a single label to be found on any of the food. Perhaps all of it had come from local producers. That would certainly keep in line with the authenticity of the place. Draco was impressed

Still looking very quizzical, he shut the door. As Draco turned around, he saw that his wand was beside the stove.

Huh.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART THREE**

They worked out a solution to the Toilet Situation after breakfast. Neither was in a hurry to see if there were indeed chamber pots located under the beds.

It helped that it was a breathtaking day outside. The gardens were not immaculate, by any means, but what they lacked in precision, they more than made up for in charm. The flower beds were full of gladiolus and geranium and the gazebo looked like a lovely place to pass the time in good weather.

They stood in the sunshine, looking warily at the outhouse, as if it was liable to collapse or explode at any moment. Hermione was on the verge of laughter. The inside of the thing wasn't that bad. At least there was a seat and it was all very clean and sanitary. Draco, who would have seen and used worse during his Azkaban days, still managed to kick up a fuss. They racked their brains for a suitable spell, ruling out Banishment Charms ("one in twenty will backfire, Granger") and a reverse Accio ("because that's just dumb, Malfoy").

It was Draco who came up with a viable suggestion. Hermione stood there and grinned as they tested the spell by pouring some bottled water into the toilet and then sending it 'away'.

"Are you sure that spell is going to work?"

"Of course it works," he said, a bit defensively. "It's used to clear the water out of stagnant ponds. It's a first class syphoning spell."

Of course it was. No doubt used on Malfoy Manor's murky ponds at one time, Hermione surmised. She was not careless enough to mention the Manor again. "And where did the um, stagnant water go?"

He didn't immediately answer.

"Draco?"

"Actually, I'm not sure," he admitted. The house elves took care of it. "It just went…_away_."

Hermione burst into laughter. "You're not sure? We're going to be here for a week, I think I'd like to know where the by-product of our holiday is going."

"I should think 'away' would be good enough," he replied seriously, but she saw the amusement on his face.

She linked arms with him. "Good enough for me, Mr. Malfoy."

"By the way, Granger did you take my wand down to the kitchen this morning?"

"Why would I do that?"

He seemed to be studying her face closely. "There's a fireplace there."

All trace of pleasantness left her as she disentangled her arm from his. "I see. So you think I was checking up on your spell-casting and reporting back to the Ministry, do you? This is a Muggle house, if you haven't already noticed. The fireplace wouldn't be connected to the Floo network anyway."

Draco hesitated for a moment before saying, "Yes, but you knew where we were going before we left. It would only have been a moments' work to hook it up."

Hermione glared at him. "You cannot imagine how offended I am that you would think that about me."

His expression was unreadable. "It's only been a year, Hermione. I don't blame you if you're still…uncertain,"

"That's right Malfoy, it's been a _whole year_. And I _will_ blame you if you _still_ think you can't trust me."

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He was angry. A plane flew overhead and the jarring noise seemed to snap him back to his damnable, placid self.

_Do it_, she thought silently, anticipation leaping through her. _Lash out, Draco_.

To her immense disappointment, he merely shrugged. "I do trust you. It was stupid of me to bring it up."

**Azkaban Island, August 2004**

She abandoned the Interrogation Room idea in favour of a walk. It was a calculated tactic. According to Seamus, who was acting Warden, Malfoy hadn't seen sunlight in over four months and Hermione figured the change in setting would either stun him into incoherency or loosen his tongue. She was counting on the latter. His attitude couldn't possibly get any worse. If it did, she'd throw him back in his cell to rot for another few months.

"Thought you might enjoy the fresh air," she said, cordially, after he had quit squinting at the sun.

Malfoy shuffled along through the grey sand in his chains, keeping his eyes on the sea the whole time. She wondered if he was contemplating running into the surf. He would die if he did. The chains would weigh him down in the water.

"Tell me how you planned it all with Harry," she asked, "the more you talk, the longer you get to stay out here."

He gave her a sideways glance, full of disdain and then walked into the water until it lapped against his shins. He didn't look the least bit thankful for the treat he'd been given. Sighing, Hermione bent down to roll up the hem of her pants before following him.

"This is the Ministry's official record of events." she began. "Your plan was to trap Voldemort in Harry's body long enough for you to destroy the remaining Horcruxes and then Harry would expel him. Only that didn't work," Hermione surmised. "Voldemort clung to his new host. Why didn't the spell you invented work?"

"I heard one of the guards mention that you and Weasley split up recently. Is that true?" he asked her.

Bloody gossiping guards. At first, she was startled to be addressed so politely by him, and then she was angry.

He was a six foot and two inches to her five-six, which meant that physically intimidating him was always going to be impossible, but she'd be damned if she wasn't going to try. Hermione grabbed hold of the front of his robes and wrenched his face down to hers. Damn him. She was hungry and irritable and mentioning Ron always sent her into a foul mood. This wasn't school any more. Couldn't he see that? They were on the same side now. The war was long over and he was the only thing standing in the way of her submitting a final report to Scrimgeour.

"Get this straight, you miserable bastard, _I_ ask the questions, not you," she seethed at him. "You think I want to be here? Do you think I asked for this assignment? I have better things to do with my life than continually reliving what was unequivocally the worst day of my life!"

He allowed himself to be shaken like a rag doll, a mild sneer on his lips as he watched her lose control. How was it possible that dressed in the worst colour God had the grace of inventing, with patches of his hair missing and looking like he hadn't slept in year, he still exuded a dignity that left her feeling frumpy, hysterical and out-classed?

Hermione realised she was touching him, and that he had professed an extreme aversion to being touched. She immediately released him and stepped back.

How had they ended up knee-deep in the water?

"You know what you need," he said in a low voice. "A nice, long, hard fuck when you get home, to give you something good to look forward to after a really shite day at work."

She was so taken aback by this that she did not notice that they were in the path of an unexpected wave. It came at her sideways, catching her in her midsection. Hermione resigned herself to falling over in the water and becoming hopeless drenched, but then Draco dragged her towards him, out of the path of the wave and released her just as quickly.

From the shore, the guards rushed towards them as soon he touched her, but Hermione waved then away. She wanted to lash out at Malfoy in private, hit him, hurt him for being difficult _now_, after the end, after four years, when everything else had already been so very difficult.

"How did my parents die?" he asked, abruptly. That explained him saving her from a drenching. He was after something.

She was surprised that no one had told him. "Badly," she informed, her chin raised. It was the truth.

He said nothing further and ignored the rest of her questions. True to her word and with a certain degree of satisfaction, she cut short the walk and sent him back to his windowless cell.

Ruth was staring at one of Hermione's brassieres with interest.

It was draped over a racemier in the couple's room. Hermione and Draco had discovered the picnic lunch Mrs. B had left in a wicker basket in the dining room and had only just set off for the lake. This was Ruth's que to straighten up their room. Mrs. B was assisting because this allowed her an opportunity to snoop through their things.

"Oooooooh," Ruth enthused, picking up the bra to admire the white silk and lace. She gave the under wire a bit of a twang and giggled with amusement. "It's so fine. I've never seen lace like this. Here, Mrs. B, these fastenings! Are they silver, do you think?"

"Stop your fiddling, girl! We're not paid to dawdle," said Mrs. B, who happened to be looking through Hermione's quilted toiletries bag. She uncapped a jar of moisturiser and peered inside.

"We're not paid at all," Ruth retorted, though with no ill feeling.

"Aye. I forget that."

Ruth sighed wistfully and hovered over to the windows to have a look at the couple's progress. She parted the curtains, but not so wide as to attract notice to the upstairs bedroom. She wasn't as ninny-headed as Mrs. B made her out to be. "He's as fine looking a man as I ever saw. If you like hair that colour, that is."

Mrs. B was eager to see how her packed luncheon was faring. She bustled over to the windows for a peek. It was warm for October. The sunlight passed through both women, falling across the coverlet of the freshly made bed.

"A handsome couple," Mrs. B nodded.

Hermione, Draco and the picnic basket made a picturesque threesome in the rowboat. The lake seemed to have its own current. They had retrieved the boat via magic and had taken it back out to a patch of sunshine in the middle of the lake. It spun around at a very leisurely rate. Hermione tipped her head back and wondered if she should have put on some sun cream before leaving the house.

Draco was absently trailing his fingers in the water. His eyes were closed and he looked more relaxed than Hermione had ever seen him. She opened the basket, pulled out two napkins and unwrapped cold meat, cheese, pastries, fruit and bread. They ate in silence until Draco noted that Hermione was holding onto the last slice of lemon tart.

"Swap you that for a strawberry."

Hermione smiled, pushed the tart into his mouth and then brushed the hair off his forehead. The amiable silence continued.

"I'm guessing she's liking it," Mrs. B concluded. Ruth didn't know whether the old housekeeper was referring to the young' man's hair or the packed lunch.

**Azkaban Island, December 2004**

"Why aren't you eating, Malfoy?" Hermione demanded. "I thought we discussed this?"

He was sitting on the narrow bed in his cell with his legs crossed under him. His eyes were in danger of sinking into his skull and his cheekbones were more prominent than ever. "For your information, I ordered a foie gras and artichoke terrine two weeks ago and it hasn't arrived yet. Please inform Warden Finnegan that the service here is deplorable," he told her, snootily.

She realised she was getting used to his sarcasm because it wasn't affecting her as much as before. Hermione stood over him, her arms folded. "You keep this up and they'll force-feed you."

"I'd like to see them fucking try," he hissed. There was enough menace in his voice to tell Hermione that the subject was off limits for the moment.

Resigned, she sat on the bed beside him and opened her ever-present folder. "Alright then, I have more questions."

"How nice for you." He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the stone wall.

Hermione decided on a different course of action. Scrimgeour had authorised no such thing, but at the moment, Hermione couldn't have cared less. "You know what? I'm done with threatening you, Malfoy. How about a nice, juicy bribe instead?"

His head turned to her. One grey eye cracked open. "I'm listening."

"I'll get you your sodding dish if you answer the rest of my questions."

"Foie gras and artichoke terrine," he said, pointedly.

"Yes, your _foie gras and artichoke terrine_," she repeated testily, "in exchange for improved cooperation from you."

"What, the culinary master here at Chez Azkaban is going to prepare it himself?" he snorted, "I'd rather eat your extremely horrible shoes."

Hermione glanced down at her feet, momentarily distracted. "What's wrong with my shoes?"

He made a 'meh' sound.

"Fine. I'll get the stupid dish from a real restaurant, alright? Do we have a deal?"

"Almost."

"Don't push me, Malfoy. I can just as easily walk out of here offering you nothing."

"I'd like some company while I eat," he announced, unfazed by her agitation.

Hermione's eyes widened.

"Bring two servings and I'll sit in here and eat with you and you can ask me your questions over dinner." He spoke to her slowly and loudly, as if she was hearing impaired.

She regarded him with suspicion. "All my questions? You won't be difficult? And all I have to do is eat?"

"All you have to do is eat," he agreed. "And it depends on your definition of 'difficult'."

"Why?"

"Never had dinner with a Mudblood before," he shrugged. "Thought I should try it once before I die." His eyes turned as remote as a Antarctic moon. "Also, if I had a last meal, _that_ would have to be it."

Hermione was troubled to discover that the Mudblood insult was finally starting to bother her. She supposed it was high time, what with him using it on her since they were twelve. It was probably because he said it so casually lately, where before it had been usually delivered in a shout or a sneer. She wanted to punch all knowledge of the word out of him.

Seamus later told her she was insane to agree to the dinner, but he thought Draco's reasoning had some logic to it.

After all, Hermione had never had dinner with a Death Eater before _either_.

**October, 2006**

They met Brutus on the third day of their stay at Mulberry House.

It was in the early afternoon and Draco was standing in one of the sitting rooms staring at the portraits on the wall, when something large and dark jumped up on the pier table beside him.

He had been holding a cup of coffee at the time and narrowly avoided sloshing it onto the picture. A pair of brilliant green eyes stared contemptuously up at him from an enormously fat, black-furred body, with a white tuxedo front and matching feet.

"Reeerrowww."

Draco stared back at the cat with equal contempt. He spoke five languages, not one of them being Cat, but he recognised an insult when he heard one. "I beg your pardon?"

Hermione picked that precise moment to walk into the parlour holding a plate of biscuits their mystery staff had made for them. If they kept this up, she wasn't going to be able to squeeze into her skinny jeans any more. She immediately exclaimed her delight at the rotund feline, dropped the plate into Draco's hands and scooped up the cat. The cat was purring so ecstatically that Draco thought it might go to pieces from the intense vibration.

"Where did it come from?" he wondered.

In response, Hermione looked at the cat's collar, where a name had been lovingly embroidered in gold thread. "Brutus, eh? Where _did_ you come from?"

"Rrrow."

"Are you hungry?"

"Purrrrrrrr."

"I think that's a yes." She set the cat down. "Let's see if we can find something for you to eat."

"You're going to feed that thing?" Draco asked incredulously.

"I am," she announced and the cat trotted happily behind her all the way to the kitchen. Draco popped a biscuit into his mouth and accompanied out of sheer curiosity.

She picked up the cat again and set him down on the counter nearest to the pantry. It rubbed his head into her shoulder affectionately. "Let's see." Hermione stood on her toes and tried to look at the top shelves.

"Malfoy, hand me your wand, would you? Mine's upstairs. I'm sure there's dried fish in here somewhere," she said to Draco without looking at him.

"I'll do one better," he replied and came to stand behind her. The front of his body was pressed against her. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her up. The ease with which he did this made her faintly light-headed.

"See anything?" he asked, after a moment.

"Um," said Hermione, who had forgotten to look. She spotted some dried haddock and then wondered why she was looking for it.

_Oh, that's right. The cat._

"Yes, thanks," she said, her voice sounding thick to her own ears. He set her down.

After all the effort of tearing out bite-sized bits of fish and putting it in a saucer, Brutus did not appear to be interested in the meal. He propped up a leg and began cleaning himself. This was done with some difficulty, due to his enormous belly which made doubling over a bit difficult.

"He's probably not hungry," Draco concluded.

Hermione patted Brutus' large, oblong head. "Have you ever known a cat to turn down a free meal? It's a miracle he looks so well cared for. There can't be another house for miles."

"It's a miracle he can _walk_ carrying that gut around," Draco muttered.

As if he understood this insult, the cat's head snapped up from his licking, to eyeball Draco.

Hermione was all smiles. "I think he likes you."

"If _that's_ what qualifies for 'like' then Voldemort must have been in love with me."

Hermione gawked at him. This was the first time Draco had mentioned Voldemort since leaving Azkaban.

Brutus had apparently finished grooming, seemingly oblivious to the silence of his companions. With a final meow at the couple, he jumped down the bench and disappeared past the kitchen doors.

**Azkaban Island, January 2005**

Crookshanks passed away on the morning that Hermione was to visit Draco at Azkaban. She had placed a saucer of milk for him on her kitchen floor and then went to see why he had not left his basket. There hadn't been any indication that he was ill. She did the math and worked out that it had to be old age. He had been with her forever, it seemed.

Her flat suddenly felt unbearable lonely. She left him in his basket, took to her bed and did not leave until Seamus called her from the fireplace. It shouldn't have felt odd to explain to Seamus that she didn't want to go to work that morning because her cat had died, but it did. Hermione was sorry for that. Crookshanks was family and deserved better.

Hermione saw Draco three days later. She was still red-eyed.

"What happened?" he asked, as soon as she stepped into his cell.

"Nothing."

"Something happened. You missed the last meeting."

"Nothing that's your business, Malfoy."

Draco scowled at her. "You're a cranky bitch today."

"Thank you," Hermione said, without feeling. She didn't want to be indoors and so they were escorted to the beach once again.

She read over her ever-expanding set of notes as they walked. It was dusk and the sky was an orange bordering on red.

"So your Soul-Containment Spell _would_ have worked, only Harry didn't tell anyone he had been hit with Imperious moments earlier?"

Draco was standing barefoot in the surf. Now that he was cooperating somewhat, his leg irons had been removed, allowing him improved mobility during his walks on the beach with Hermione. Seamus didn't allow him a cane and Hermione knew that his pronounced limp embarrassed him.

"No, he didn't tell me he'd been hit. It took nearly all the strength he had left to fight off that bout of Imperious and if I had known, I would have _never_ initiated the spell. He didn't have enough will left in him to withstand Voldemort. It was bad timing and he knew it." Draco picked up a stone and hurled it into the water. He seemed to enjoy doing this whenever they spoke about Harry.

Was that regret in his voice? Hermione thought it might be. "You got along with Harry, didn't you? All the times you met with him in secret? None of us had any idea. He never betrayed your confidence."

Draco tossed his hair back and gave her a withering look. His hair had grown back at a phenomenal rate once he had started eating normally. There was a knowing look in his eyes, as if he was well aware that in her fragile state, he had the power to please or upset her with his reply. "You'd like that wouldn't you?" he asked, in a half sneer. "You'd like the idea that Potter and I actually became friends. The truth is we didn't. I hated him and he hated me for what happened to Dumbledore. Our alliance didn't change that."

Hermione felt the familiar prickle of injustice every time Malfoy showed what little respect he had for Harry's memory.

But then she realised he had been speaking in the past tense.

"He tried to protect you, even at the end," she retorted, angry.

"Yeah, and he's _dead_ because of it," Draco stated flatly. He walked up to her until his face was inches away from hers. The wind picked that precise moment to change direction and blew his soft hair into her face. It was like getting whipped and caressed at the same time. Malfoy smelled like the sea. His hands were still shackled and they were the only physical barrier between them.

"And I am here, because of what _you_ failed to do," he breathed the words over her.

"You would have ended up here, anyway, Malfoy."

"Perhaps," he stated, in that crisp, aristocratic manner of his. "That day, that final stand when he realised what was happening to him, he asked _you_ to end him, not me. And in the end, you failed him and I had to finish the task before Voldemort took him over completely. For all your brains, Granger, you didn't have the balls to do it. I had to kill Harry Potter because you were too weak to do what needed to be done. What he wanted you to do."


	4. Chapter 4

**PART FOUR**

Hermione discovered the old well just before sunset that same day. The method of discovery left a lot to be desired, however. The air smelled heavy with ozone and she wondered if Brutus was safely indoors.

Draco was sitting with his feet up in the pink parlour, reading a wizarding business journal he had brought along in case the car ride got too boring. "He's got fur, he'll be fine."

"He's not a duck, Draco."

She grabbed some of the haddock from the pantry and set off, calling for the cat all through the back garden. There was a little path skirting the wood and she followed that for a time. No sign of the Brutus, however. Hermione backtracked until she was almost to the top of the path, when she thought she saw a pair of eyes peering up at her from the scrub.

"Brutus?"

There was a rustling noise and a distinct, "Reeeow?"

"There you are." She parted the shrubbery. Unexpectedly, her foot caught on a rock hidden beneath the scrub and the next thing she knew she was tumbling forward down a steep incline and then falling. She put her hands up to brace herself for the impact, but the fall was longer than it should have been.

She groaned. The sheer quantity of leaves at the bottom of the well cushioned her fall.

"Hermione!"

She squinted up at the top and saw Draco hanging over the edge. His light-blond hair turned a dazzling gold as the sun began to set behind him. Draco called her name again, his voice rising with panic. He had apparently been shouting her name for some time, but she hadn't responded.

"I'm here," she croaked. The noise seemed to bounce off the mossy, old stone inside the dry well.

Pause.

"Yes, I know you're there, but are you alright?"

_Sarcastic git_, she thought. "Yes!" No. Her bum was sore and oh, what was that shooting pain up her calf? Her ankle hurt. "Son of a bitch," she swore.

"Stay there! I'm coming down."

"No, you're not!" she shouted back. "If you didn't have the good sense to bring your wand with you, go back to the house and get me mine. I'll Apparate out!"

"Forget the wands."

"Don't Draco! Not with your leg. You'll fall!"

"I will not fall, you idiot!" It was the only time he had ever raised his voice at her since Azkaban. She felt a little tingle of delight, and then immediately agreed with him that she was indeed an idiot. If it had to take a near-death experience to make him lose some of his cool, that wasn't exactly reassuring news. She couldn't possibly be falling down wells every other day.

Draco untied the rope from the attached pail and made a harness. She watched as he looped it over the suspending beam at the top of the well to create a makeshift pulley. He was quite clever, really. He used his good leg to push off down the wall of the well as he descended. At the bottom, he found her half buried under a mountain of rotting leaves and had to dig her out a bit.

"I'll get you out in a minute," he said, after touching her cheek briefly. "Any damage?"

She winced when he picked her up to slide the harness under her bottom. "I think I twisted my ankle."

He had a look, once he had unearthed her foot from the leaves. She was sad to note that her shoe was hopelessly lost. The trainers had been her favourite pair.

Her ankle was already swelling up. "We'll see to this back at the house."

Hermione gave the rope a little tug. The wooden beam that held it creaked a little. She gave him a worried look. "Is this rope going to hold?"

"If it held me, it will hold you."

It was then that she realised he was actually trying not to smile.

She slapped his arm. "What's so funny?"

"The way you went over. I went looking for you the minute it started drizzling and turned the corner just in time to see you cart-wheeling into the well. All I saw was a pair of legs scissoring in the air. And then you screamed."

"I did not scream!"

He grinned. "You did. Scared the birds out of the trees too."

God, he was beautiful. His rare smile was doing fluttery things to her heart. Her chest actually hurt. The pain of her ankle was forgotten. She couldn't resist tilting her head up and taking his mouth in a tentative kiss.

His fingers dug painfully into her upper arms and he kissed her back with enough aggression to make her head spin. She couldn't contain the soft mewl that escaped her. Overhead, the threat of rain became a reality and it thundered.

Warm flesh turned to cold marble. He pulled away until his back was flat against the stone of the well, his lips parted, wet and rosy. He was breathing like he'd just run up to Gyrffindor tower and back again. He suddenly looked claustrophobic.

Hermione was not so damaged that she thought herself unworthy of any man. It just happened that the one she wanted was in no state to healthily reciprocate. Fate was a cruel thing. If it was sadistic enough to throw the two of them together, it could at least make the rest of the way a bit easier.

Her eyes welled up with tears, but they did not spill over. It had been a long time since she allowed herself the luxury of crying.

It's just me, isn't? It's not that you can't, or won't? Tell me if it's me."

He looked away and rubbed a hand over his jaw. "It's not you. I just need time."

It was scene that had played out at least a hundred times before; for all that it still felt just as painful each time.

In a more businesslike manner, he looped the makeshift sling under he bottom and sent her up the well first. The rain was coming down hard and so they were both soaked to the skin by the time Draco had climbed out.

Hermione felt utterly miserable. They had shared their second kiss ever, at the bottom of a well, with rotting leaves in her hair, a twisted ankle and rain pouring down on top of them.

She noisily protested as he carried her back to the house. Draco didn't argue, but he didn't put her down either. He told her to be quiet and hold on to his cane as shifted her weight to his good side and continued onwards.

Thank goodness the bathing room was on the first floor. His intent was to take her there so she could wash off some of the dirt from her clothes and face. As soon as they entered the tiled chamber, they saw that the low, square pool had been filled to the brim with steaming water.

"Um, Malfoy?"

"Yeah?" He was squatting down beside the pool to test the water with his hand.

"Why aren't we thinking about how odd it is that there's a bath full of hot water waiting for us?"

He flicked the water off his hand. "Maybe they have House Elves here."

She was looking around the foggy room incredulously. "Were House Elves ever _this_ efficient?"

"More or less," he replied absently. He got to his feet and turned to look at her. "You probably should have a wash."

The pool looked big enough to accommodate five people. Pity it was only going to be one, in the end. He helped her out of her jeans and she was appalled at how much wincing and complaining she did when he gingerly pulled the garment off her sore ankle. After that, he took a washcloth, dipped it in water and cooled it with his wand. This was then wrapped around her entire foot. She sighed. That felt _much_ better.

"Just lay back and keep your foot up on the top step."

He left her to her bath. The water was heaven. Fragrant steam rose all around her. Oils had been added, she noted. There was a distinct rose scent in the heavy air. Hermione let her hair down, tossed her dirt-crusted scrunchie to the far corner and leaned back with her eyes closed. She sighed. The sound seemed to echo through the chamber. She wiggled the toes on her injured foot to see how it was faring. There was still some pain, but it was much more tolerable.

Draco rapped his knuckles on the wall about twenty minutes later. There wasn't really a door to the bathing chamber.

"Granger?"

"Hmm?"

"How's your ankle?" He was looking at a spot on the floor. He hadn't changed, but he had taken off his soaked, clinging white shirt he'd been wearing. His fair skin was dewy and his fringe was clinging to his forehead.

Hermione was now sitting on the middle step which meant that the top half of her was quite visible. A strange bravado crept over her. Maybe it had something to do with the heat, or the heady scent of the steam or just the fact that she was soaking in a subterranean bathing chamber like some Roman concubine.

Beads of condensation gathered at her collarbones and pooled down between her breasts. She rolled her shoulders a little, and her breasts thrust forwards, the nipples flushed a dusky pink. Her hair was pushed back, gathered into a twisted ponytail over one shoulder. Two spots of colour rested high on her cheekbones.

"My ankle's fine," she said, to the love of her life.

"I was thinking of having a bath as well, while the water's still hot." He sounded like he was being tortured. Good.

"Oh?" The water was cooling quickly. If he didn't fancy a cold dip, he'd have to get in now. "We can share the bath," she helpfully suggested.

For one blessed moment, he looked like he was about to agree. But alas, "No, no. Just call out when you're done and I'll take my turn after."

He was joking right? He had to be joking. Hermione had to resist the urge to unwrap the washcloth from around her ankle and throw it at his face. Incensed, she pushed off the step and stood up. Sheets of water fell from her. The oils made her body glisten. While she wasn't one to spend hours a week exercising, an active lifestyle and good genes had guaranteed a trim figure with a small waist, gently flaring hips and legs that were longer than they ought to have been on someone her height.

Draco stared as only a man can stare when he very badly wants something that he keeps denying himself. Hermione realised he must have been incredibly distracted because he did not offer her any help whatsoever as she limped up to him and took a towel from the wall with deliberate slowness.

She touched him under her chin. "All yours," she said, as she loosely wrapped the towel about her. And then she hobbled, as gracefully as she could manage, out of the chamber.

Hermione hoped to God he was banging his head against the tiled wall with frustration for making her resort to such tarty measures.

**Azkaban Island, March 2005**

"But _why_ did you turn to Harry? What happened with the Death Eaters that was so bad that you ran to him, of all people?"

He never failed to avoid the question. He changed the topic, he distracted her, he threw a tantrum, he intimidated her. But on that particular day, something else happened.

A guard, a large burly man with noticeable squint, slid open the bars to Malfoy's cell and entered the room with a tray of food. It was lunch. Hermione realised she had never visited Malfoy during meal times, apart from the dinner she had bribed him with, before Yule. The large man gave Hermione a professional nod of greeting and then to her dismay, proceeded to openly leer at Draco. The look on his face made Hermione's skin crawl.

What was more alarming however, was Draco's response to this. He went very pale and very still.

The man set the food down at the foot of the bed, stuck one finger into what looked like overcooked chocolate pudding and sucked on his finger suggestively. His suggestive stare never left Draco.

Draco's expression remained steely, but anyone in the room at the time would have heard his breathing hitch.

Hermione was silent after the guard had left. She looked at Draco and saw that he was staring at the food as if it was contaminated.

His distracted, silver gave flickered up to her briefly, and in that instant, she saw pure, undiluted terror. It was gone just as quickly, replaced with indifference.

"Seamus, who is that guard?" Hermione later asked. "I haven't seen him before?"

"Demidov? He transferred from Suzdal Prison last month."

"Is he…ever alone with Malfoy?"

"Of course not. You're the only one allowed near him. You know how Scrimgeour is."

Hermione nodded, so relieved that she sagged into the chair in Seamus's office.

Seamus looked like he wasn't sure what he should be thinking, or rather wasn't pleased with what he thought he should be thinking.

"I want him removed," Hermione said, presently.

"Removed? You mean transferred-"

"No, I want him _gone_. As in not working here anymore. I don't care where you put him, just not at Azkaban."

"Hermione-"

"Just do, it Finnegan!" she snapped. If Scrimgeour has a problem, tell him to speak to me about it."

She took Draco's medical files home with her that evening, amazed that she hadn't thought to do this before. After an hour of reading St. Mungo's detailed report of his physical state on the day he had been brought in after the final stand, the answer to the mystery of why Draco had betrayed Voldemort was answered.

Hermione went to bed that night feeling sick to the marrow of her bones.

She was awake well before she opened her eyes on their fourth night at Mulberry House. Hermione stared at the blue silk canopy above her head for several minutes, thinking that the artfully draped cloth resembled the turbulent waters that surrounded Azkaban. A quick glance at the digital travel clock on the bureau said it was midnight. Impossible. She had only been asleep for forty-five minutes? She could not recall the last time she ever felt so rested after a nap.

Draco lay on his side, facing her. His elbows were up around his face, as if he were trying to ward off bad dreams.

Or her sleepy advances.

"Draco," she whispered, more out of a need to say his name rather than actually wanting him to wake up.

He stirred, released what sounded like a pent up breath and then rolled over to his back. The sheets were twisted around his legs. It had taken him a while to learn how to sleep in comfort again, with sheets that didn't scratch you and a blanket you didn't have to share with mites.

Smiling, she got out of bed, padded over to the other side and released him from the covers. She pulled the blankets over him and only just managed to hold back from touching him.

"Was it worth it?" Ron had asked her only the previous month. It had taken him a long time to be able to speak to her again for having the audacity to fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

As Hermione stared down at Draco, feeling the usual mixture of awe, ownership, disbelief and underlying unhappiness, she knew she had done the right thing.

"Yes," she said, to no one, and to no question in particular.

She wasn't at all tired and decided that tossing about in bed was only going to disturb Draco. Hermione walked over to the armoire and pulled on a thick bathrobe and a pair of slippers over her toe-socks. Trying to be as quiet as possible, she turned the handle at the double doors, pausing briefly to stare at the wand she seemed content to leave on the dressing table, before going downstairs. There was something about Mulberry House that rendered her at ease enough to wander about without her wand.

Hermione was three steps down the central stairs when she saw that there was a light coming out of the front room, the one that was all done up in shades of pink.

_Aha!_ She thought, thinking that she was about to solve the mystery of the invisible staff.

The door to the room was ajar and the soft candlelight spilled out onto the marble entrance hall. She pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The room was empty. There was a delicate little tea cart stacked with a pot of tea and a set of cups and saucers. On the table beside the cart, a lit candle had been placed beside a leather-bound book.

It never once occurred to her to feel ill at ease. Rather, she was intrigued. She picked up the book, pulled the candle a little closer and sat down to read it.

Stebbins bowed to his mistress and left her to her midnight routine. It was a good thing that his lordship had not yet arrived yet because Esther was intent on a moment alone with the dark-haired young lady who had just entered the rose parlour.

Esther waited until the young woman had opened her journal, before taking a seat beside her on the settee. She took a moment to arrange her skirts before looking over Hermione's shoulder to see how far their visitor had progressed through the journal.

The young woman was a prodigiously quick reader, Esther soon realised. She read through the earlier, brighter, girlhood entries with an expression of rapt curiosity. There were a few sniggers at some of Esther's dramatic teenaged sentiments.

"You are getting to the important part," Esther encouraged. Hermione did not hear her. It was as Jonathan had guessed. The young man, Draco, seemed more attuned to their presence than Hermione, but Esther could not help but note that Hermione began turning the pages, with a great deal more reverence than she had before.

The next pause came at an entry dated in 1804. It was about Jonathan.

"Our families were never great friends, to put it lightly," Esther explained, with a bit of a resigned quality. "Gossip had it that Jonathan's great, great grandfather lost a bet to one of my ancestors. A powerful baron, I believed. Later still, there was a bit of a scandal involving a young lady running away with a young man from Jonathan's family. The Sandhurst men have a certain reputation, you see," she said, with a winsome smile.

"Truth be told, I detested Jonathan on sight, and I daresay he did nothing to change my opinion of him in our first months of acquaintance. I had just made my bow the previous season, and entertained a number of offers. But I was wilful, or rather as wilful as a young lady of consequence can be. I insisted on making up my own mind, which at the time, I assure you, was not something to be generally admired …"

Hermione turned the page and began reading over Esther's detailed description of Jonathan the night he and Esther had met at a ball.

"Ask me to describe him to you now, and I can, for I have had the benefit of several lifetimes spent with him and no longer suffer from the same embarrassment." Esther knew she was smirking, but did not feel the need to blush over her memories since she knew she was speaking to a thoroughly modern young woman. "Had you asked me then, I wouldn't have had the words, so overwhelming was his effect on me. He was quite loathsome at first, to be completely honest. Perfectly obnoxious. Rude, arrogant, completely without manners or morals…and his temper! But when he looked at me, I could safely say that I felt like I was…"

Hermione whispered, with her eyes closed, "Doing what you shouldn't be doing, being where you shouldn't be, but none of it matters because suddenly you have exactly what you want and you had no idea you wanted it."

Esther laughed. "Yes."

Hermione sighed, sniffed a little and then turned to the next page, noticing that Esther's small, neat script began to pick up more of a frantic, hurried quality.

"He asked my father for my hand and I believe by then, my father would have given me to the Devil himself rather see me happily wed to a Sandhurst. It did not help matters that I was an only child, for my father did not remarry after my dear mother had passed. To say my father disapproved of my involvement with Jonathan is understating the case," Esther said dryly.

"He threatened to lock me up and throw away the key, like some medieval princess in her tower." Her voice grew grave. "As it turned out, unbeknownst to myself, he had already accepted an offer from another man. A wealthy but untitled gentleman who had made an offer for my hand. To this day, I do not know the terms of the offer he put to my father, but it must have been great indeed to surpass Jonathan's."

Esther glanced at the date of the page Hermione was frowning down at. "As you can see, I did not think highly of this other man. There was an ill vigour about him, an unnatural light in his eyes. He did not see me as a partner with whom he could share his life, but as a possession."

Frowning, Hermione worried her lip with her teeth and turned the page

"Jonathan and I eloped. We did not go alone, for we were both rather spoiled and could not bear to be without certain conveniences. We took three of my late mother's most loyal servants with us, packed what we could and arrived here. My father would not have been aware of the smallest of Jonathan's country manors, so we felt safe for the moment."

The last entry was dated October 30th, 1806, nearly two centuries ago, to the day. It consisted of six lines; a curt entry about suspicious happenings and paranoia and Esther's belief that they were being watched, if not stalked.

That was where the journal ended.

Disgruntled and disturbed by the fact that there was no more to read, and no apparent conclusion to Esther's story, Hermione put the book down and flopped back in the chair.

"What happened to you both?" she breathed.

Esther obliged her. "I had endured troubled sleep for several nights before I wrote that last entry. I believed that we had been discovered. Jonathan and I were convinced that it was my father's doing. The last thing I recall was waking up with Jonathan cold and dead beside me, and a great flash of green light that seemed to pass right through me. There was no pain, only a great…coldness. The next moment, I awakened and I am as I am now. You have to understand that once we understood what had happened to us, every attempt was made to discover why we cannot leave this place.

"We searched the entire house and the grounds as far as we are able to venture. It was to be concluded that nothing had been touched saved one item."

Esther held up her pale hand. She wore a delicate gold bracelet around her wrist, but nothing else. "My engagement ring."

"It is nowhere to be found and we have become convinced that it is somehow linked to our being here. We have had no visitors in two hundred years, my dear Hermione. You have been sent to us for a _reason_."

"Hermione?"

Draco was standing at the door. His hair was mussed, he was barefoot and holding a sheet around him like a makeshift toga. He was also scowling at her.

"What are you doing in here? It's bloody freezing."

She opened a mouth, but it took a while for her voice to work. "I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd walk a bit."

"You left the bed," he said with a frown.

His annoyance was a like splash of cold water. "Being in bed is hardly conducive to walking, is it?" she snapped.

Draco looked startled at her anger. For a moment, it looked like he might have replied with a sharp retort of his own, but as she might have predicted, he quashed it and held out his hand to her instead.

"Come back to bed."

God only knew where he sent all his anger. Or where he kept it, rather. One of these days, his head was going to explode from his being so fucking agreeable all the time, Hermione thought. Her eyes felt itchy. She wanted to cry and didn't really know why. Esther's story was like an unfinished symphony. Hermione felt unsated, unsatisfied.

She went to Draco. No matter how bad things got between them, at least that would never change.

Draco did not sleep well that night. Sometime before dawn, he sat up in bed and scrubbed at the back of his head. Hermione was a nearly indistinguishable lump under the covers. She tended to curl up and move towards the middle of the bed when she slept. He had a look under the blankets and was amused when he saw that she was lying at a right angle to the headboard.

He picked up his cane, slipped on his bedroom slippers and sat in the window seat. The front gardens and the surrounding woodlands were mist-drenched from the recent rain. In the half-light, the gazebo looked so white it was almost glowing.

The darkness and the fog gave the woods an eerie quality and for the first time, Draco openly acknowledged that there was something out of the ordinary about Mulberry House. It wasn't just the invisible servants, the food that magically appeared, dirty dishes that magically disappeared, clothes that put themselves away and the lamentable lack of a flushing toilet. It was more than that. Stepping into the house had felt like stepping onto foreign soil. Draco had felt like he was leaving one place and entering…somewhere else.

At first, he had just chalked it down to the Hermione's contagious, nervous energy and the fact that they were spending so much time together alone.

But there were also odd moments when he felt like they were being watched, but he had dismissed this because the feeling had never really disturbed him. The house did not make him feel uneasy, rather, he felt cared for. There was a certain…benevolence about the place. It reminded him of Hogwarts, to be honest.

Merlin's tambourine. He rubbed his eyes. The house was 'benevolent' now, was it? What was next? Cranky cottages?

He was watching the wind play tag with the mist in the gardens, when he saw a fully reined and saddled horse trot across the ground and disappear around the side of the house.

Draco stood, opened the window and stuck his head outside. He even whistled. Some distant, over excited bird replied, but there was no horse.

It had to have been his imagination, but seeing as he was wide awake now, he decided to investigate. He checked to see that Hermione wasn't attempting to suffocate herself under the sheets, as was her habit, before grabbing his cane and heading out of the house.

Hermione sat up in bed as soon as she heard the front door creak open.

It was blisteringly cold outside and Draco regretted not throwing on a coat. Curiosity kept him going, however. Moving quite swiftly, his legs slicing through the mist, he made his way around the house, to the stables.

No, it hadn't been his mind playing tricks on him after all. There she was, a beautiful, gold-touched bay, stomping restlessly just outside the stables. She wasn't terribly large, but with superb lines that advertised at least some Arabian ancestry. The mare was agitated. She reared back on her hind legs as he cautiously approached.

"Hello," he soothed, catching her reins. "Where on earth did you come from?" He stroked his palm down her velvety nose. The horse calmed down a little, until she realised that Draco was intending to lead her into the stables.

She neighed and shook her head from side to side. Draco smiled, even as his hold on the reins tightened. He patted her on the side of the neck.

"I guess that's a no."

She refused to settle down. He could see the corded tension in her body. The way her eyes rolled back in her head. The way she stamped her hooves and sniffed restlessly at the brisk air.

Draco regarded the horse seriously. "Easy, girl. It's alright. Merlin, but you're a splendid creature. You want to go for a ride, don't you?"

She went completely still and stared back at him. Her liquid eyes seemed to look at, and then into him.

It had been many years since he ridden a horse and the saddle that this particular one was wearing looked almost completely foreign. It was shorter and thicker than Draco was used to. He looked down at his cane for a long moment and then dropped it. It disappeared into the mist that was still swirling around Draco's legs. Without giving it too much thought, lest he change his mind, he put the foot of his good leg into the stirrup and vaulted onto the back of the horse. Hermione would probably fall into a dead faint if she knew he was intending on riding in such wet conditions on an unfamiliar animal, but she was not there to offer her opinion.

Draco took calming breath, adjusted his grip on the reins and kicked off.

It was as close to flying as anything he could think of.

Hermione arrived at the stables just in time to practically dive into the bushes for cover, as Draco hurtled past her on the back of a horse.

A horse!

The sight of Malfoy, wearing a long-sleeved, grey t-shirt with black pyjama pants, riding a horse through the early morning mist was extremely alarming.

Alarming and _stirring_.

What the hell was he doing riding a horse with that leg of his? Without a saddle, no less! He was going to break his neck! She was just about to make her presence known and demand that he dismount at once, but something stopped her.

He didn't look like man who was taking a foolish risk. Draco looked perfectly calm and completely in control. His face was a mask of concentration as he tested the mount, putting her through her paces. He must have decided that the mare was very much to his liking because a big, cheesy grin spread across his face. Hermione felt guilty just for watching that very personal, unguarded moment.

She kept watching however, enraptured and at the same time terrified he was going to fall and hurt himself. It was all well and good when he rode around the enclosure for a few minutes, but then he began eyeing the fence that separated the woodlands from the enclosure with a mischievous look she hadn't since they were schoolchildren.

_Draco, don't event think it!_

"Oh, please don't, please don't, please don't," she muttered, holding her breath as he bent low on the back of the horse and rode harder and faster toward the broken fence.

She had to resist closing her eyes as he jumped it. For what felt like the longest moment, the horse seemed to fly. It sailed over the fence with a good deal of clearance.

Both horse and rider landed safely on the other side. Draco started laughing. He was actually _laughing_. The wonderful sound brought tears to her eyes. He patted the horse and gave it plenty of praise. She whinnied and reared on her hind legs. Hermione felt her heart stop again, but Draco was in no danger of being thrown, for all that he ought to have slid off the back of the animal and fallen to the ground in a heap. She hadn't the faintest clue that he was such a skilled rider, but at the same time, she wasn't surprised.

With a final parting glance at the enclosure, Draco turned the horse around and disappeared into the wood. The galloping noise eventually faded away. He was gone.

Hermione stood up from her hiding place, aware that something important had just happened. Draco had proved something to himself. If he could ride a horse, he could fly a broom.

And if he could do that…

Good lord, he'd been riding in his bedroom slippers!

Hermione was shuddering from the cold and a mixture of emotions by the time she crawled back into bed. His scent was everywhere. She lay wide awake for hours it seemed, listening intently for his return.

The sun was up when he walked into their room. She heard the faint thumping of his cane on the carpeted floor.

If he made love to her at that moment, Hermione was sure she was going to burst into flames in the bed and burn down the entire house.

But he didn't. It was the longest, most agonising wait in the world. He seemed to hover over her for a long while, not moving, just standing there. Eventually, he kicked off his slippers and climbed into bed to hold her. She wrinkled her nose, thinking she could probably get used to the smell of man, fresh air, leather and horse. All in the one package.


	5. Chapter 5

**PART FIVE**

**St. Mungos, June 2005**

She stood in the hospital corridor for a few moments, feeling the need to catch her breath after running up to the third floor so quickly that it felt like liquid cement was running through the veins in her legs. The graveyard shift had just commenced and two orderlies who had been giving her surreptitious glances eventually approached with paper and a quill. Hermione glanced up at them and the look on her face must have made them think twice about asking for an autograph.

She turned the doorknob and entered the room.

Two guards were standing on either side of Malfoy's bed. Seamus said there had already been a little trouble once word had got out that Malfoy was currently at St. Mungos. A small group of people had protested outside the office, calling for Malfoy's former death sentence to be reinstated. People never forgot that he had killed Harry, but they seem to like forgetting why it had to be done.

"Can you please give me a minute alone with him?" she asked the guards. Her tone of voice did not suggest they had a choice.

"Miss Granger," the younger guard said, "I'm sorry, but we have orders."

She nodded jerkily. "Right. Well, here are some new orders. Leave this room right now or I'll have you transferred to some stinking Ministry piss pile up north. Way up north."

Discretion was the better part of valour. Hermione Granger was a member of a small group of men and women who were considered wizarding national treasures. It was probably a good idea not to give her a reason to dislike you.

They left Hermione alone with the silence and with Draco. Her hands clenched into tight fists as she approached the bed.

"You stupid, pathetic, son of a bitch," she hissed, in a tremulous voice. "What gives you the right to decide when you get to die?"

Draco was awake, but his face was turned away from her. He inhaled a deep, staggering, breath.

"Look at me, damn you!"

He turned to her, his face was a ghastly shade of grey and his lips were tinged with blue. They had treated him in time, Seamus told her. One of the guards had found him unconscious on the floor of his cell, lying in a growing pool of his blood. He had apparently pulled out a spring from his mattress and scratched two, ten-centimetre, vertical gashes on each wrist.

"Why did you do it?" she demanded.

He licked his parched lips. "Because I'm done," he said, in a hoarse voice.

"That's right, you _are_ almost done! You're going to be released any week now. I'm asking you again, Malfoy. _Why_ did you do it?"

He was too weak too keep up his facade of indifference. Hermione watched his face crumple, seeing up close the  
complete and total desolation there. It was reminiscent of the time he had attacked her during the first interrogation, only now he was lucid.

"You've got the information you needed for your report. Why are you still here?" he asked the question as if it were the reason for his attempted suicide. Hermione was immediately incensed.

"Because I can be here," she replied, and then more softly. "I want to be here."

"Don't come anymore. _Please_. I don't want to wonder if you're coming back each time you leave," he told her, with anguish. "It's too much."

Her eyes filled up with tears. She knew she was going to be harsh, but she also knew that cruelty would reach him better than kind words. "Fine," she nodded. "Crawl away and die then. I thought I was rid of you for sure," she said, and then she put her face in her hands and sobbed.

Malfoy was staring at her with genuine horror. "You keep the hell away from me," he rasped out, looking like he wanted to pull out a crucifix against her at any minute. He looked genuinely terrified of what she was doing to him.

Hermione glanced up at him. "Is that what you really want?"

His eyes closed and he collapsed back against the pillows, exhausted. "I just want to be free. I don't want to feel. No more nightmares. No more hoping either. You make me hope, Granger. It _hurts_."

She loomed over him, her face a cold mask of fury. "And you call _me_ a coward? If you _ever_ do anything like this ever again, and I'm guessing that if you did, you'd probably get it right the second time, know that I will _hate_ you. I will hate you more than those people carrying signs outside the Hospital, demanding that we import a Dementor from Bulgaria just to suck out your soul, because you deserve it. You will die knowing I hate you even more than them, Malfoy.

He gave her a tender smile. "You couldn't hate anyone."

"I will make an exception," Hermione assured him. She took hold of his bandaged hand and kissed his palm. "Just tell me you won't do it again."

His grey eyes were dark, dark pools. With a groan of defeat, his hand curled around the back of her head and he pulled her down into a kiss. It wasn't the stuff of crystalized sexual tension.

It was a kiss designed to offer comfort and take comfort; clumsy, wet, noisy and a bit salty from her tears, but it did the job.

Hermione sat in Seamus' office and thanked him when he handed her a tissue. She blew her nose and then regarded her old school friend and the Warden of Azkaban, with a sheepish look.

"I'm in love with him."

"Yes, I know," Seamus said, not unkindly. "Hermione, you turned in your final report months ago, but you've still been coming back to see him for interviews. I think it's been obvious to everyone except you. Malfoy certainly caught on earlier than you did."

She remembered what Draco had said about not wanting to wait for her to come and see him anymore, and she sent Seamus a stricken look. "Are you saying that his suicide attempt is _my_ fault?"

"Fuck no! It's _his_ life, Hermione. However, it's my duty as your friend to tell you that I have a huge problem with what you've just told me."

"And that is?"

"He's a train wreck," Seamus stated plainly. "I suppose it wouldn't do any good to tell you you're making your life more complicated that you can handle?"

Hermione snorted. "Seamus. Have you _seen_ my life?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Well, he hasn't been a model prisoner by any means, but he's been the most interesting one I've ever had to deal with. Think I'll almost miss him."

She got what he was trying to tell her and practically jumped to her feet. "You're joking? Who signed the release papers?"

"Scrimgeour himself. Keeping prisoners we don't need anymore costs money. The trials are over now, Hermione, and people are keen to move on. When Malfoy's well enough, we will be escorting him back to the mainland and then he's on his own. He doesn't have a cent to his name and he'll be leaving Azkaban with the clothes on his back. Which is where you come in, I suppose?" Seamus gave her a knowing look.

There was nothing else to be done about it, thought Hermione.

Draco would have to come home with her.

**

"I thought we could have lunch in the gazebo today, if the weather stay's nice," Hermione suggested over breakfast.

It was their last day at Mulberry House and she couldn't have been more miserable. The thought of going back to work, of going back to her small, poky flat with its massive, invisible walls between them was agony. Draco would spend his day concocting new ways to reclaim his fortune with Zabini, and Hermione would return to the Ministry to a job she wasn't interested in doing any more.

Ron would continue to regard her in that half-disgusted, half-pitying way. In another ten months, Draco's probation period would be over and then what? He could open his own bank account, run a legitimate business under his own name, buy property and move to Botswana. Would he leave her? She swallowed the lump in her throat. Perhaps she was conceited to assume that he really was in love with her. Hermione wondered if she had misread him badly. She realised she was being dramatic, but the thought of never seeing him again made her want to curl up into a ball and never have to face the outside world ever again. When had she become so dependent, so needy?

_He_ ought to have been these things.

"Alright," he replied.

She set her fork down and stared at him. He was cutting a thin sausage into perfectly even pieces. She felt like reaching across the table, grabbing his plate and hurling it at the wall. His fucking breakfast received more attention than she did. Good lord, she was now jealous of sausage! Hermione resigned herself to the fact that she had gone insane from emotional and sexual frustration.

"And after that I want to go for a hike." Needless to say, hiking wasn't entirely painless for him.

"Okay."

"When we're back home tomorrow, I thought we might visit Seamus and Lavender at their new house." He hated Azkaban's Warden with a vengeance and this at least, made his reply to her a little more strained than usual.

"Fine," said Draco.

"Alright. Okay. Fine. Is that all you can say?"

He put his napkin down and stared at her. "What would you prefer me to say?"

"How about, 'I can't stand that posturing Irish git and his simpering doily of a wife'? I know that's how you feel about the Finnegans."

Draco looked so thoroughly confused that for a moment, her irritation waned. "I don't understand. Do you or do you not want to go to visit them?"

He was missing the point entirely. She threw down her napkin and stood up. "I can't take this anymore. I am sick and tired of you being so bloody agreeable all the time. You were more interesting when you were a complete arsehole!"

"Hermione, calm down."

"I will not! I did not sign up for happily ever after. I've been battling the forces of wizarding evil since the age of eleven. My life was never meant to be a fairy tale! I need a healthy disagreement every once in a while. Where's the man who tried to strangle me at Azkaban the first time I saw him there?"

The look of incredulity on his face was almost amusing. "You want me to strangle you?"

"Yes! I mean, no! I just want you to get angry for once! Lose your temper! Tell me off! You must remember how to from school. Do you remember Hogwarts, Draco? You hated the sight of me! Ron and I argued every day. I always knew he cared enough about the relationship to not let me just steamroll over him all the time!"

"Steamroll?" Draco repeated the unfamiliar term. His colour was rising at mention of Ron. Hermione thought this was a good sign and plunged onwards.

"You insult me every time you bury your anger, because you think my feelings for you are so trifling that I'll walk out at the first sign of dissent? Is that it? _Tell me_ that's it because I'm going out of my mind trying to figure you out. I can't give you any more time, Malfoy."

He stood and cocked his head to the side, as if a new angle would make her seem less crazy to him. "Let me get this straight. You have a problem with my manners?" he asked, very carefully.

"Only because you never had them before! This new Draco Malfoy is…is…" she struggled for a word that was effective but non-offensive.

"Boring?" he supplied. His face was flushed. She could see his pulse in the vein that was standing out at his temple. "That's what you meant to say, isn't it? You think I'm boring." There was a measure of hurt in his voice. But not hurt enough to be furious with her yet.

No. Not that. He was never boring. Draco couldn't have been boring to Hermione even if he was sound asleep.

"Send me an owl when you find your temper! I'll be at the Burrow." Hermione knew she was going too far in goading him about running to Ron, but truly, she was at her wits end. If _that_ didn't get his knickers in a knot, nothing would. She ran into the kitchen as fast as her sore ankle would allow, thinking to use the back door to escape into the yard and cry her eyes out under the gazebo.

She had taken three, limping steps towards the door when an earthquake hit the Manor. Or at least, that was what it felt and sounded like. Suddenly, there was no back door. There was, however, a huge gaping hole where the door had once been. It was smoking around the ages and enough dust was suspended in the air to make her cough.

A family of ducks that had been enroute to the lake were staring at them with amazement.

Hermione's jaw dropped open as she spun around to face the culprit.

Draco stood behind her, holding a smoking wand, hell's fury on his face. "What kind of manners would I have, if I didn't open the door for you to leave me?" he whispered.

"I wasn't-" she began, but he cut her off by taking a menacing step forward.

"Angry enough for you?" he inquired with a raised eyebrow. "Or would you prefer my hands wrapped around your throat?" His eyes dipped to her neck with sinister intent. "You know how I like to please."

Hermione's hand instinctively went to the wand holster at her hip which obviously wasn't there because she was supposed to be on holiday with the man she loved, not defending herself against his inner Death Eater.

"If you run to Weasley, my dear, I will not be responsible for what I do to the both of you when I find you. I don't care if they send me back to Azkaban for the rest of life."

"Draco-"

He wouldn't let her speak. It was wonderful. "And the next time you lecture at me to avoid flying because it's too dangerous, to not lift something, to watch myself on the wet pavement, to not go out at night in case I get attacked by some crazed Potter devotee, I swear Hermione, I will turn you over my knee and beat you until you are black and blue!"

He was shouting now. Oh, this was _good._.

"I'm just trying to look after you," she stated, in a tremulous voice. She realised she had been edging around him because the back of her waist met with the kitchen counter. She was trapped.

He continued stalking her, his eyes blazing. "Yes, that's what I've been telling myself all these months. Sweet, kind, Granger, as bereft as the rest of us and yet still putting your saintly, bushy-haired self out there," he sneered. But almost as if to soften the comment about her hair, he buried one hand into her thick curls, moulding it to the shape of her skull. "You rescued me and took me home like an abused, abandoned puppy, you now think you know what's best for me in all matters, don't you, pet? You think you can fix me like a broken sink?"

Hermione was stunned at what she had unleashed. "You cannot blame me for worrying about you."

"Granger, if I survived two years at the mercy of depraved madmen, believe me I can manage tying my own fucking shoelaces without injuring myself!" he roared at her. She felt the force of that shout in her teeth.

"Then why not tell me so!" she demanded.

"Did it ever occur to you that I hold back because I'm terrified of what I'll do, what I'll become if I let myself go?"

"What you'll do?" she repeated, shaking her head. "I don't understand!"

Draco showed her. "This," he breathed, running the hand that was in her hair down to her waist. He squeezed hard, too hard. "The nightmares I tried to run away from that night you came to see me at St. Mungos. I was so dark for so long, I'm afraid it's left a permanent taint on my soul, Hermione."

Hermione raised her chin. She wasn't afraid of him. She knew he wouldn't hurt her, even if he didn't trust himself. "I'm a big girl, Draco. Why don't you try me?"

The molten hot look he gave her seared her to the soles of her feat. His mouth twisted and his breathing became harsher. His eyes were telling her lewd, incredibly graphic things. "You want me to _be_ the Death Eater that I am?"

Oh God, yes. She did. With all her being. She had fallen in love with the courage and resilience of the unbelievably complex man she had come to know in Azkaban. He was still there, under all that grating civility.

And she was head over heels in love with him.

"I want _you_! I don't feel like I have the real you sometimes."

The smile he gave her made her stomach summersault.

"Then, Miss Granger, introductions are in order."

Draco scooped her up, took two steps forward and Hermione found herself sitting on the counter top. Too far back apparently, because he pulled her closer, settling himself between her legs. He speared the fingers of one hand through her hair, while the other frantically undid his belt and slid it from the loops around his trousers. It fell to the kitchen floor with a dull, metallic thunk. Not once did he break the kiss. Not even for air.

The kiss was wild, savage, the result of long-suppressed desire for her and much more besides. Hermione wondered how she could she have ever doubted that he wanted her? The guttural, primitive sounds he made spoke more eloquently of his need for her than a year's worth of gentle conversation.

His ran his left palm from her shoulders, squeezing there first as he had done to her hip moments before. And then he dragged that warm palm downwards, down over her sternum, stopping to squeeze and knead at both breasts. His tongue was in her mouth, seeking out the sensitive areas under her top lip, running across her teeth. He pulled her bottom lip into his mouth and tugged lightly, before sucking on it. Months of knowing her body from sight translated into re-learning it with touch. Every rough stroke of his hand made her feel like he was memorising the lines of her body, the dips and hallows, angles and soft places.

"I need more...much more," he whispered to her, brokenly. Hermione recognised it as a promise and a warning of what was to come.

And then he stepped away from her altogether until he was no longer touching her and not one bit of their clothing was in contact. She felt like she had just run a marathon. Her heart was slamming in her rib cage. She leaned back on her elbows because there didn't seem to be enough air between their bodies to sustain them. They simply stared at each other, a pause in time, for breath as well as reaffirmation of what they were about to do together.

The front of Draco's pants was undone. Underneath, he was wearing the boxers that he had slept in. The blunt, engorged tip of his cock showed through the waistband. It was lightly glistening with moisture. She could barely tear her eyes away from it, but his eyes were demanding her attention. They had turned a deep, stormy brown.

Hermione groaned, reaching for him. But he was quicker. Just as he had been in that Azkaban interrogation room two years ago, when he had wrapped his his hands around her throat.

Draco grabbed hold of the buttoned edges of her blouse and ripped it open with explosive force. The white pearl buttons clattered to the floor every which way.

His long-fringed eyes were downcast, but she didn't need to see them to know that they roamed over her breasts, an invisble caress that made her flush deeply. He pushed her back gently until she was lying across the counter and then his mouth was on her.

He bent forward and covered her breasts with both hands, murmuring over them. Hermione barely registered what he was saying through the cacophony of desire roaring past her ears. But she caught the words 'beautiful' spoken over and over.

He licked broadly on the underside of one sensitized breast and she whimpered, her own hands running through his soft hair, pulling his head closer and deeper into her. When he finally began to suck on a nipple, she gasped and arched and he gratefully obliged by sliding a forearm under her back so that he could bend her further into him as he suckled.

"Draco...oh my god."

She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. It took great effort not to leap off of the kitchen bench from the volatile sensations coursing through her. This was more than mere desire, this was visceral. The toes of her left foot accidentally brushed his erection and his mouth opened against her breast in a gasp of surprised delight.

That was apparently just the punctuation he needed because he pulled away again and violently pulled down her pyjama bottoms and underwear in one swift, downward motion. The material gathered around her ankles. Not content with just that, he pushed her knees up until she was completely exposed to him.

Her palms were braced palms down on the counter, on either side of her. Hermione lifted her head to stare at him with uncertainty.

"Draco?"

He replied with a look so full of love that all her lingering doubts evaporated.

"You have no idea how long I've waited."

She wanted to say, yes, she did know how long. She knew very well, but her tongue was incapable of forming the words.

He kissed her stomach, dipped his tongue into her navel and whispered how good she tasted there. Hermione could barely hold her head up, but too look away was impossible. Their first time together was going to be branded into her memory forever. His mouth moved lower and lower still until he placed twin kisses on each of her hip bones, followed by the insides of her thighs. And then, with a shudder, he slid his warm hands down from her raised knees to the juncture of her thighs and then into the very heat of her.

Hermione felt his thumbs open her up gently, there was a brief pause where all she heard was his breathing. Or was that her breathing? Whoever it was was trying to get air in and not doing a very good job of it.

And then she felt his breath between her legs, a soft sigh of introduction followed by the tip of tongue gently opening her up further until she was parted.

He stroked her, lightly at first and then heavier, small stabbing motions with his tongue that had her delirious and thrashing her head from side to side. His lips closed around her for a more aggressive exploration before his tongue swept inside her for a brief, sweeping taste.

Draco retreated. She saw that his hands were shaking where they rested lightly on her waist.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered. "Draco...please. I'm coming out of my skin."

He stepped back, breathing so hard she thought he might hyperventilate. He shoved a hand under her neck and hauled her up so that she would look at him.

"My turn," he said, with a piercing silver stare. He was all Draco in that moment, but she didn't think she could even recognise his voice.

His other hand had freed his cock from the prison of his clothes and the sight of it nearly made her weep. She had seen him naked before, of course, but never with the knowledge that she could touch, suck, hold and love him to her heart's content.

Draco pulled her pyjama bottoms off her feet, taking care of her injured ankle and when she might have given him another plea, he drove into her, filling her to the base of his cock in one massive thrust.

The pleasure of it was beyond enduring. Hermione gasped, a scream lodged in her throat. She felt full and tight with the warmth of him, the wonderful, head-spinning sensation of his pulse beating deep inside her. Twin hearbeats, almost.

Draco thew his head back, his hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. "Hermione..fucking hell."

And then he was slamming into her again and again. Her fingers gripped to the edge of the counter each time he pushed her too far back. He assisted by sliding his hands under her bottom and lifting her lower half entirely off the bench and onto his cock for each deep stroke.

One particularly angled thrust tipped her over the edge and Hermione came with a shattering cry. She felt that orgasm in every nerve ending of her body. Her toes curled against his hips.

Draco grunted, shut his eyes and slid into her once more before he joined her in release. Even through the haze of her own climax, she felt the leap of his cock insider her as her muscles contracted around him, intimately squeezing him as he emptied himself in heavy, hot, pulses.

He collapsed on top of her, the side of his face pressed against her chest. Hermione wrapped her legs around him and promptly burst into tears.

Needless to say, he was rather appalled until Hermione assured him that no, he hadn't hurt her or disappointed her. He had scared her some, but she didn't think he was in a state to hear that just now.

"Then why are you still crying?" he persisted in asking.

"I don't know," she sniffled. "I can't seem to help myself."

She was sitting across his lap in one of the kitchen chairs as he stroked her hair and soothed her. This was less than fifteen minutes later and she could feel his hot, wet, erection pressing against her thigh.

"Is this going to happen every time I touch you?" he asked. The worry in his eyes made her get a hold of herself.

Hermione sat up a little straighter and swiped the back of her hand under her nose. It wasn't the most elegant of actions, but she had long ago resigned herself to the fact that Draco wore the manners in the relationship.

"I'm just emotional."

His eyes turned frigid. "Is this usual for you. With Weasley, I mean. Did you always used to...cry?"

She shook her head. "God no. Rest assured this is a new development." She stared at his chest, thinking how much she wanted to nip on the enticing muscles on either side of his shoulders and his pectorals and his abdominals and everywhere else he grew muscles.

"I've got snot on you." She wiped that too with the back of her hand.

He hadn't stopped touching her. His fingers ran over her belly, massaging at her lower back, lifting and cupping her breasts. Weighing them with his hands. "You know I nearly disgraced myself when you stepped out of that bath yesterday."

"When you could have disgraced yourself in the bath _with_ me."

"I'm a fool," he agreed, diplomatically. A quick shifting motion brought her leg around him so that she was straddling him. He reached between them and slid into her with a long, drawn out groan.

"Who would have thought that I'd have you?" he asked, sounding so incredulous that he wrung a shaky chuckle out of her.

"I don't know. Seamus, most of the Azkaban guards, Ron, half the Ministry. Suffice to say, I think they thought it was a sure thing the day I took you home."

"About..ahh, all the...things I told you, um, earlier..." he said haltingly, as he slid out of and into her again. His mind was still on higher matters, apparently.

"Just tell me you love me," she urged.

"Iloveyou," he hurriedly rasped out. Hermione had taken over the rhythm and was riding him slowly. Her pelvis ground into him. Her palms rested on either side of his face. She stared into his eyes, searching.

"Again, Draco."

It was gratifying to see him so distracted. "I.._oh_, I love you."

"Again," she demanded, her voice rising. If he responded, she didn't hear, because she was in the delightful process of splintering into a thousand pieces.

**

"I am so hungry right now."

"Me too," Draco said.

Hermione yawned. If it was a hint of one of them to goad the other into getting up, it didn't work.

Unfortunately, they were in no condition to search for their own food, let alone move. So they stayed where they were, on a long couch in the rose parlour. Hermione was naked and draped over Draco. Somewhere along the line, Draco had reclaimed his boxer shorts. She couldn't recall if it was after the bedroom and the bath, or perhaps when they walked past the kitchen to become acquainted with the carpeted floor of the library. Or maybe it was when he went to use the outhouse and then returned to find her sitting on the pianoforte wearing only her toe-socks.

Hermione tossed her hair over her shoulder and shivered when Draco ran a fingertip down her spine. Her skin was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration.

"Am I crushing you?"

He made a pfft noise. "My broom weighs more than you do."

"Does that mean you're going to fly again when we get back?"

"Fly, ride, fuck, attempt to become a cat person, yes. All of the above."

She rested her elbows on his chest and her chin in her hands. He lazily stroked her bottom as she started down at him. "Spit it out, Granger,"

They had been too cautious with each other for far too long, for her to shake the habit. "The past doesn't just go away overnight, Malfoy. I'm worried you'll relapse."

His eyes darkened momentarily. "I _guarantee_ I'll relapse, but just be there to catch me and we'll be fine, I think."

So simply said and about as honest as he could possible be with her. Hermione rested her cheek against his chest, liking the up and down sensation from his breathing. "I couldn't do it, you know. I couldn't have killed Harry, even though I knew what was happening to him. The rest of the team was still too far away to help in time. Malfoy, if you hadn't been there, Harry would have been lost in the worst way imaginable."

Draco shut his eyes. "Looking back, it couldn't have happened any other way. I know how Snape felt the day I raised my wand to Dumbledore."

Hermione shivered from the memory. "You're right about some things leaving a permanent taint on the soul. I see Harry's face everyday, asking me to kill him all over again. Some days, I think I can. But most of the time, I'm glad you did it," she said, so softly he had to hold his breath to hear her. Hermione gave him a sorrowful glance after this confession. "That makes me a terrible person."

He shook his head at her. "No. That makes you someone who loved him."

The couple was dead to the world, but Jonathan supposed that fifteen hours of nearly continuous sex would do that to a person. He took the fresh blanket that Stebbins had kindly fetched from the linen closet and draped it over Draco and Hermione.

When that was done, Esther stepped into the circle of her husband's arms. They looked down at the sleeping lovers. "It is almost enough, is it not?" she said softly.

"Almost," he agreed. The grandfather clock in the foyer announced that it was midnight.

"All Hallow's Eve," Esther said sadly.

And yet they had not been released from the house.

The curse had not been lifted.

**

Hermione kept the car engine running to give the heater some time to warm up. Meanwhile, Draco stood on the front step of Mulberry House and fidgeted.

They left a long note apologising for the missing back door and Hermione accordingly attached a substantial cheque to cover the damage. She also included her profound thanks to the invisible staff that had taken such exceptional care of them during their stay. This was followed by a postscript informing the staff of the visitations of a certain chubby feline by the name of 'Brutus' and urged them to look after him if they could.

Not wanting to be outdone, Draco commandeered the note and added his own post, post script, giving his compliments to the owner of the remarkable horse in the stables and left their address in case the beautiful mare was ever up for sale.

Hermione was ransacking the upstairs bedroom in search of her beloved toe-socks, declaring that she couldn't possibly leave without them. Only a man in love with Hermione could be jealous of her unabashed affection for toe- socks, Draco thought. He fidgeted some more with the ring he had stashed in his pocket, wishing she'd hurry up.

She emerged shortly, shut the doors and then gave him a breathless, brilliant smile. Her toe-socks were waved in the air triumphantly.

Draco's rehearsed speech fled from his brain. Oh well. He would have to improvise.

"Marry me."

Hermione's jaw dropped open when he produced the ring from the pocket of his coat. The large, yellow diamond sparkled like a pinch of trapped sunshine. She exclaimed that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on.

Draco hugged her tightly. Some of the speech was coming back to him now. "You brought me back. You gave me a reason to _be_ back. I love you, Granger. Say you'll marry me?"

She didn't say anything for the longest time. Her lack of response was starting to annoy him. "This is the part where you normally say 'yes, my love, yes, a thousand yeses', or some such thing," Draco muttered.

Hermione burst into tears for the second time that week. "Yursqushme," she said against his chest.

"What?"

She pulled away with some effort and then stared up at him with shining eyes. "I said you're _squishing_ me. I'd like to give you an answer, if you let me have some room to do it."

Draco waited. He tapped his foot, even.

_Arrogant to the end_, Hermione thought. She was grinning like a fool. "Yes, I'll marry you, Malfoy."

He squished her again.

Blaise, was of course, working in his office when Draco walked in.

His business partner shot to his feet as soon as he saw him. "What the hell happened?" Blaise demanded in a shout.

Draco thought his friend's reaction a bit over the top, but he supposed with the amount of care and attention Blaise had put into organising the retreat, he had some stake in the marriage proposal too.

"Whatever commission I'm paying you, double it. That holiday was the best thing I've ever done. Bear in mind I'm including that time we set off a Dungbomb in the third floor girl's bathroom at Hogwarts. You'll be pleased to know that Granger has agreed to the ah, merger."

Blaise looked apoplectic. His dark, handsome face was becoming faintly blotchy. "What the fuck are you talking about?! The manager of Mulberry House has called me at least a dozen times this week!"

Draco frowned. "Is it about the damage to the kitchen? Because we left them enough money to put up a third floor."

"What? According to them, _you never arrived_!"

"Come again?"

"I'm serious, Draco! They had a full staff waiting for you the whole week. I've been worried sick and I even contacted the Ministry and was forced to flirt on the phone for twenty minutes with Terry Fucking Boot to try and find out if you'd contacted them. They said they haven't heard anything from Hermione since they day you two set off!"

"I don't understand," Draco insisted, "We _found_ the house! I mean, it was a little strange that we didn't see the staff the whole time and there was the whole outdoor toilet situation…"

Blaise was staring at Draco oddly. "Malfoy, sounds to me like you and your fiancée stayed _somewhere_ for the week, but I assure you, it _wasn't_ at Mulberry House. I suppose we now have to add breaking and entering onto your list of exploits."

"I'll be damned," said Draco, at a loss for words. He sank down into one of Blaise's ridiculously uncomfortable chairs.

His worry now gone, Blaise was beginning to see the humour in the situation. He started laughing. "Well, that _has_ always been my opinion of marriage."

**

The house aged two-hundred years overnight.

The villagers in the area who had been past the dirt track that led to the place were amazed that they had never before noticed the old building. It caused quite a sensation. Conservation experts from the local shire were invited to take a look.

It seemed remarkable that nothing had been removed or vandalised in all the time it had been there. The gilded furniture was covered with two centuries of dust; the marble floors in the foyer were dull and stained from the water that dripped from holes in the ceiling. Wallpaper peeled from the penetrating damp. The carpets and drapes were disintegrated in some places and the overgrown gardens at the back of the house and crept into the kitchen over time due to the fact that there didn't seem to be a back door.

All in all, it was an extraordinary find.

Of particular interest were the two portraits in the parlour at the front of the house, which were the only clues as to the former owners. Lord Jonathan Sandhurst, Earl of Claremont and Lady Esther St. James, it was later discovered, had vanished without a trace in early 1806. They were rumoured to have eloped.

The portraits, along with several other items were removed, restored and displayed at the local Town Hall museum for visitors to speculate at the mystery of the house, and the young couple that had once called it home. What was an even greater mystery, however, was the thoroughly modern, pristine, thank you note that had been found on the pianoforte in a front room, and an attached cheque for a tidy sum of money made out to an exclusive hotel located some fifty miles in the neighbouring county.

Both were dated on Halloween, 2006.


End file.
